I love to eat

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Dinners This Week

The past two weeks of meal planning were thrown completely off by a major storm that knocked out our power for four days. While a friend who had electricity saved all my chicken and pork by stowing it in her freezer for me, we still ended up throwing out a ton of food. I have not gotten around to replenishing anything but the basics (half and half, sour cream, jarred garlic [I cannot quit it], cheese). We have eaten out a good deal since the storm hit, and boy is it easy to not cook when you have been not cooking for awhile. Anyway, we are getting back to normal this week if it kills us.

We are in this weird liminal space between summer and fall where I cannot for the life of me decide whether I want to force myself to grill chicken and eat salad… or I want to give in the urge to make rich, stewy fall suppers. Let’s try a little of both, shall we?

Dinners the Week of September 24 to September 30

  • Tacos

Note: My family grew weary of Taco Tuesday so we took a little break… but it’s BACK, baby!

Note: The last time we made this, the chicken was weird and put me off chicken for… a long time. I am now firmly back in the Pro-Chicken camp, but I am a little apprehensive. Yet chicken paprikas is one of my favorite foods, so I can’t stay away forever… Well, hopefully this turns out okay.

Note: I saw a similar salad on a menu recently and realized I’ve never tried making something like this. So let’s give it a shot.

Follow up: This was good! Except I… made some alterations. First, I added corn and avocado because that’s how I roll. Second, I made swordfish instead of chicken because it was on a killer sale and I couldn’t resist. Third, I did not love the peanut dressing, so I also made this teriyaki dressing except I didn’t have pineapple juice so I used the juice from the mandarin oranges. My husband used a combination of the dressings and enjoyed it very much. Fourth, I didn’t eat any mandarin oranges. Fifth, I forgot about the cabbage which is likely still in my fridge. I am the kind of person Internet recipe writers HATE.

Note: We haven’t had this in ages and I’m excited for it.

Note: We did not get to make this the last time I planned it due to the power outage, so let’s try it again this week.

Note: This is another one we did not get to make the last time I planned it. Hopefully it isn’t cursed or anything. As I said previously: I honestly have no idea what Gochujang tastes like, so it could be a Very Bad Plan. But it sounds lovely and my idea is to cook it on Sunday while we’re watching football and have a Nice Family Dinner together (not that Carla will eat anything with flavor. But hopefully she’ll eat the components.).

Follow Up: This was good! The flavor of the gochujang was the perfect blend of tangy and spicy. The marinade was very easy to make, and it was simple to just set everything into a pan and let it cook for a couple of hours. The one disappointment, for me, was the garlic. I was really excited about all the slow-roasted garlic, but it didn’t really ADD to the experience. I might do without it, next time.  Did I forget to the do the scallions? Yes, I did. Crap. They are probably languishing in my fridge with the cabbage from the salad. Oh – I have also decided I am Over skin-on chicken. It’s just so flabby and gross and you put the marinade ON it, so you miss out on the marinade flavor. I know that it helped flavor the potatoes or whatever, and helped keep the chicken from drying out, but there has to be SOME WAY to do with this boneless skinless chicken breasts. I think it would be better.

  • Date Night

What are you planning for dinner this week?

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Dinners This Week

You will be pleased and relieved to learn that The Smell has been eliminated! I did nothing more than the techniques I conveyed to you… I think the airing out via open windows was the clincher, there. Now that it’s gone, and there are (AS YET) no dead animals decaying in our walls, I am feeling rather cheerful. And, of course, it’s always nice to have an excuse to tidy up the house, get rid of the garbage, clean the sink/disposal, and wipe down the counters. Plus, bonus clean laundry (although that’s still in the dryer; what, I’m CONSISTENT at least in my inability to fold the clean laundry).

It was fascinating to read your comments about what I might consider in my search for The Smell – we all have our go-to sources for disgusting odors, which is comforting. I mean, I’m really glad that my garbage disposal isn’t the only stinker. But some were surprising! For instance, I was SO INTERESTED to know that potatoes smell!

But here is where I tell you a deep, dark secret: I keep my potatoes in the fridge.

I KNOW. That’s where I keep onions and garlic too, even though you’re NOT supposed to. I do it anyway and no one has died.

This is possible, I think, because I rarely buy more than two potatoes at a time. (Except at Thanksgiving, when I buy 10-20, and use them immediately to make mashed potatoes.) (Mmmmmm…. Mashed potatoes….) Same goes for onions, although maybe I buy those in more the four-to-five-at-a-time range. And I have expressed my love for jarred garlic many times in this space. IT IS A TIME SAVER, what can I say? If I bought potatoes and onions by the sack, it would be a different thing altogether. And I can easily imagine myself getting really potato-happy and then leaving some spuds to languish in a closet until they became all sprouty and gross.

Anyway, now that The Smell is gone and we are already talking about food, let’s have an abbreviated list of meals for the next few days:

Dinners for the Week(ish) of July 10 – July 15

Note: Now that our grill is in working order, I am All Grill All the Time. But grilled salmon still makes me nervous… so I am going to square my shoulders and try this recipe with Nagi’s very simple and clear instructions for not leaving half your salmon fillet on the grill grates.

Follow Up: Note to Future Me: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO GRILL THE SALMON! ABORT! ABORT! Even though I followed (tried to, I guess, and clearly SCREWED IT UP) Nagi’s very clear and simple instructions, half the salmon stuck to the grill and then the whole thing was overcooked and I had to finish it in the broiler. It tasted good, though. Also, her French vinaigrette was delish.

Note: I had this salad on the menu a few weeks ago and never got around to making it, but now I’m really going to do it. With goat cheese instead of feta though. We have some pork chops in the freezer, and some brand new marinades from Wegman’s, so that’s what we’ll have to accompany the salad.

Follow Up: Our pork chops were supper thin and ended up tasting like cardboard. But the salad was yummy! My husband really liked the salad, but laughed at me when I told him it was a Brand New (to us) Salad; he feels like we have had variations on it A LOT. Fair, I suppose. It’s very similar to a spinach and arugula salad that I fell in love with earlier this year, probably because of the goat cheese and cranberries and use of spinach in both salads. Also, full disclosure, I could not find pine nuts at the grocery store so instead I roasted some pumpkin seeds that have been living in my pantry for lord knows how long. They were delicious, and Carla ate a bunch of them, which is always a coup, getting her to try something new. The white balsamic vinaigrette was good but not super; I am judging it against a memory, which is super unfair. The memory is of a salad I used to get on work trips, with shrimp and avocado and a white balsamic dressing. This… was not that.

Note: Every time I look at this recipe, I kind of furrow my brow. It seems like a LOT for one recipe, for one thing. But it also sounds really different and fun – flavor profiles I don’t eat often, for absolutely NO reason.

Follow Up: This was okay. The flavors didn’t really leap out at me, and my husband wondered if it might have helped to reserve some marinade and serve it as a sauce. Maybe. But there was the green sauce already, so I didn’t think it needed it. And the green sauce was… fine. A very different-for-us and interesting mix of flavors. It was fun to try, and certainly helped make the chicken more interesting, but I’m not rushing to make this or the Moroccan chicken again.

Note: I will marinate the shrimp in a mixture of lime juice and taco seasoning. Will I grill it? Time and bravery will tell!

Follow up: After the salmon situation, no way was I going to try to grill the shrimp. So I just roasted them. The salad, as per usual, was AMAZING. I also made an impromptu second dressing, because it turns out I really like having two dressings on a salad. I mixed 1/8-1/4 cup of fresh lime juice with 1/3 cup of fat free Greek yogurt and a tablespoon of honey. It was super yummy. I just kept adding lime juice until it had a nice pourable consistency.

  • Chili

Note: It seems like planning a week full of To Grill items is just asking for rain, so let’s have a nice indoorsy recipe as a backup, shall we?

Follow up: I love (this very specific recipe for) chili. I don’t think I’ve ever posted a chili recipe here and someday I will have to remedy that.

All right. Now I need to scurry off to the grocery store for provisions.

What are you eating this week, Internet?

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Dinners This Week

First, I love you. Thank you for your kind responses to yesterday’s crisis of parenting confidence. I read each and every comment yesterday and felt so understood and comforted. Also, Carla’s teacher noted today that a LOT of kids are off lately.  Some combination of recovering from all the illness going around and facing yet another dreary February day.  That helped, too. Today has not started out much better, but I didn’t cry, so we’ll call that progress.

Anyway. *Brisk clap.* No matter what emotional turmoil we’re facing, we still have to eat. So let’s plan some meals, shall we?

Tomorrow is my last day of this infernal challenge. It has been fun, if “fun” is a word you can appropriately apply to persistent headaches and an overwhelming longing for Diet Coke. And I am pretty sure if I tough it out for a week or so more, I’d be able to keep up with it. But I like carbs and I don’t want to cut them out entirely, nor do I want to live a wine-free life at this stage of my development, so I think I am going to stick to good ol’ calorie counting from here on out. But for tomorrow, I am going to make this FINAL sugar free option for dinner:

Note: Is this a complete meal? Shrimp and zucchini? Will my husband feel like there isn’t enough substance? I guess we’ll find out.

Follow Up: I made this version instead: https://damndelicious.net/2015/01/24/zucchini-shrimp-scampi/  It was DELICIOUS. Definitely filling, definitely enough for my husband and me. I will definitely make this again.

Then on Thursday, I am making Spaghetti with Meat Sauce (my own semi-homemade recipe, which is delicious) and we will get cake from our local bakery. Also, wine. And garlic bread.

For the remainder of the week (leaving a night for leftovers or going out):

Note: This is a tried-and-true FAVORITE in our house. I am going to see if this gets me back on the chicken train. (Ugh. The term “chicken train” is enough to make me leave the station again.) If not, I pack it with enough veggies that there’s no need real need for meat.

Note: This is another favorite. I use thyme or dill for the “herb” part of the herb crust. For some reason, Ina’s green beans and shallot dish is almost always the side I pair it with. It’s GOOD. And easy – especially because I don’t blanch the beans first. I just throw ‘em in with the sweaty shallots.

Note: Easy, delicious, healthy.

  • Black Bean Burritos

Note: I have missed eating legumes during this 10 day challenge. And cheese. Burritos are the perfect antidote.

I may also make a big pot of this for lunches next week:

 

What are you eating to combat the February Drears? Are you doing anything fun for Valentine’s Day dinner?