Menu Tuesday

Oops. I had no intention of taking an almost month-long blog hiatus, but as it sometimes does, life just got in the way. I had a major project at work due on January 16, cohosted a baby shower the next day, and then woke up last Tuesday with the flu. I haven't had the flu in probably 10 years and I forgot how it just sucks the life out of you. Yuck.

But here I am, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to get back into my routine. First things first: catching you up on all the recipes I've made in the past month. Brace yourselves, because this post is a doozy.

 Flounder Piccata with Spinach (Cooking Light March 2008)

This one is an old standby. I'm not sure I've ever made it with flounder; I usually use tilapia since I always have frozen tilapia filets on hand. I served this with a box of Near East pine nut couscous.

  Black Bean and Cheese Tacos (Everyday Food, June 2011)

I have several binders at home in which I've filed all the recipes I've torn out of magazines over the years. Every time we have a meal from Everyday Food I go through a mini-period of mourning for the magazine's untimely demise. It was the BEST. Martha Stewart, I am still a little pissed at you for pulling the plug on it. Please bring it back. Please?

Anyhoodle, M actually made this recipe and declared it to be very easy. It was quick and really filling, although I thought it could've used just a little bit more salt.

 Pepperoni Bread (I have no idea...I need your help!)

Our next-door neighbor and his girlfriend gave us the BEST Christmas gift in the form of the pepperoni bread. It was readymade with instructions for baking. I put it in the freezer and as soon as we had a night when I just didn't feel like cooking, I fired up the oven. I know I'm going to enjoy anything that comes with the instructions "baste with butter." In the interest of trying to be health-conscious, I basted with olive oil instead.

OMG IT WAS SO GOOD. Does anyone have a recipe for pepperoni bread? Our neighbor travels all the time and his girlfriend lives out of state, so I haven't been able to track down her recipe yet. This would be such a great Super Bowl food. Help a girl out!

 

Burrata Pizza Pie (What's Gaby Cooking)

I'm not sure I even need to tell you how good this was. My favorite homemade crust + burrata + prosciutto + basil. Yeah. That speaks for itself.

 

 Camarones Al Mojo De Ajo (Summer is a Verb)

Another old standby around here. Also this is shockingly popular on my Pinterest. It gets repinned all the time!

I happened to have everything on hand to make this and it always tastes like a little plate of summer to me. This time I took the seeds out of the jalapeno and that was a mistake. We both like it better with the spicy kick.

 

Roast Chicken with Rosemary and Lemon (Skinnytaste)

I used thyme instead of rosemary because I had some leftover fresh sprigs on hand. I'm always surprised by how good (and easy!) a simple roast chicken is and this one didn't disappoint. M was SO EXCITED to have roast chicken on a weeknight, which was cute and hilarious. The leftovers make excellent chicken salad.

 

Chicken, Shiitake Mushroom, and Wild Rice Soup (Skinnytaste)

This recipe is in my top-5 favorites from Skinnytaste. I've been making it for us since before we were married. It's so yummy and comforting. It was made even better with the leftover brown molasses rolls I had stashed in the freezer.

 Oven "Fried" Breaded Pork Chops (Skinnytaste) and Braised Red Cabbage with Vinegar (Bon Appetit October 2010)

The pork chops were great, but holy goodness, the cabbage! Maybe I'm a weirdo, but I have always loved cabbage. Such an underrated little vegetable. There are so many recipes for braised red cabbage out there, but I wanted one that was simple and not too heavy on the caraway. This recipe from the inimitable Lidia Bastianich was perfect.

 

Skinny Spaghetti Squash Alfredo (The Comfort of Cooking)

Another repeat for us. Now that I feel like I have finally mastered cooking spaghetti squash, I really need to branch out, but this preparation is just so freaking good! It's so filling and easy and tastes much more decadent than it actually is. I knew it was a good sign when I pulled these out of the oven and M said, "Oh yeah, you've made these before!" If he remembers a meal, it's only because it was worth remembering.

 

Creamy Pesto Pasta with Chicken and Broccoli (Budget Bytes)

Yet another home run from Budget Bytes. For those of you with kids, I would imagine this would be a hit. It's almost got a ranch type of flavor profile going on. It's a one pot meal and it's so darn simple.

 

Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili (Budget Bytes)

I love white chilis. They're my favorite. And while this recipe isn't quite as good as my favorite (Texas White Lightening recipe from Southern Living a million years ago...this says February 2003, but my recipe is from a cookbook published in 1994), it was still pretty delicious. And spicy (which we like)!

 

Three Cheese Zucchini Stuffed Lasagna Rolls (Skinnytaste)

These are great, although I have a bone to pick with lasagna rolls. These type recipes are always advertised as SO MUCH EASIER than regular lasagna and I'm calling bullshit. Regular lasagna is way easier. You just layer. What is easier than that?  When you have to roll, I inevitable end up with a few noodles that fall apart (see the middle roll on the bottom) and filling starts seeping out the sides and it's a mess. I love this recipe, but honestly, I think it would just made it as a normal lasagna in the future. Anyone else feel this way?

  

Salsa Poached Eggs and Grits (Budget Bytes)

M was trying to so hard to be helpful when I was sick and he offered to make dinner one night. This was one of the recipes that I had planned and I thought it would be pretty easy for him to execute. That was not the case. (I love you, honey! You are really awesome at making breakfast!) The eggs ended up being overcooked and I was so exhausted from helping in the kitchen that I only ate a little bit of it.

I wasn't super impressed with the meal, but I'm not sure if that was the recipe's fault or just extenuating circumstances. It gets a second chance.

 

 Bagel Bites

After the previous night's disaster, I just really wanted Bagel Bites for dinner. WHY ARE THEY SO GOOD?

 

NOT PICTURED:

We hosted a few friends for New Year's Eve and I made a batch of Ina's Shrimp and Sausage Jambalaya. A few thoughts:

1. The fact that Ina's estimated serving size is 6-8 helps me understand why she is such a large woman. Seriously. One recipe of this filled two Dutch ovens, fed 5 adults for dinner, and we still had enough leftover for 2 dinners and 2 lunches. And we are not a group of dainty eaters. Ina, I'm impressed. And horrified.

2. I used a can of diced tomatoes in placed of the cup of seeded, diced fresh tomato. This was a mistake. The extra liquid made the rice a little overcooked, gummy, and wet. It bothered me. Next time I would either reduce the amount of other liquids, or just use the diced fresh tomato.

3. I am the only person who was bothered by this. Everyone else loved it. Especially topped with the bacon hot sauce my MIL put in M's stocking.

 

Last Friday we had tickets to a hockey game, so we scarfed down Budget Bytes' BBQ Beef Stuffed Baked Potatoes in a hurry and I forgot to take a picture. Lucky for you, I've written about these before, so you can see a picture and read my review there.

 

If you've made it this far, congratulations on suffering through an epic amount of terrible food photography!

Menu Monday

Hard to believe it's been 3 weeks since my last Menu Monday post (or my last post at all)! Lots of catching up to do around here...

Minnesota Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup (The Kitchn), Brown Molasses (aka Outback) Rolls (It's Always Autumn)

Awwww yeah, this was sooooo freakin' good. The soup was rich, hearty, and flavorful...and mostly healthy if you can get past the heavy cream (I can).

M and I are not big chain restaurant people, but we both have a weakness for chain restaurant carbs (I'm looking at you, Olive Garden breadsticks). When we were first married and lived in a barren culinary desert, we would hit up Outback Steakhouse for date night and would've been perfectly happy just to sit and eat basket after basket of their rolls. I happened upon this recipe on Pinterest and knew I had to make them. I am somewhat intimidated by homemade bread, but these were basically foolproof (proof...haha, a yeast joke! So punny). They tasted pretty close to the real thing too.

 

Quinoa/Bulgur Wheat and Kidney Bean Tacos (Budget Bytes)

This is another old favorites from Budget Bytes. It's one of those meatless meals where you truly don't even notice that there isn't any meat. Plus it's easy and healthy and so delicious. (They would be vegan if I hadn't added big dollups of sour cream on top.) I used up the bag of quinoa hanging around, so I had to add in a little bulgur wheat. And I had a can of kidney beans in the pantry, but no black beans, so that's what we used. Another victory on my mission to clean out our pantry before our Christmas travels.  

 

Baked Tilapia with Tomatoes (Budget Bytes)

Yet another Budget Bytes/clean out the freezer meal. This has quickly become one of my favorite ways to fix tilapia or any other flaky white fish. Our grocery store often runs BOGO deals on bags of frozen, individually packaged tilapia or swai filets (I always make sure to get something that is Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch approved!). The tomato topping is so flavorful that you would never know you're not eating fresh fish. I like to serve it on top of rice or couscous to absorb all of the sauce.

 

 Quiche a la Clean Out the Fridge and Freezer

Our flight back from visiting M's family in Baltimore didn't get in until midnight the night before. We were leaving again for NYC in less than 48 hours and I was determined not to grocery shop in between, so this was what I came up with.

 I used Kate's recipe as a base for this. I had a Wholly Wholesome whole-wheat piecrust leftover from making Thanksgiving pecan pies. I added frozen peas, some sautéed ground beef and Italian sausage, and a ton of feta cheese, and then topped it all off with some Parmesan. Et voila! It was actually really quite tasty, considering the randomness of it all.

 

Black-Eyed Pea Soup and Cornbread

No real recipe here. Just sautéed some onion, carrot, celery, added in the beans and a hambone and let it simmer away for a few hours while we packed and took care of last minute things around the house. The cornbread was a cheat; I used Bob's Red Mill mix and added a little creamed corn. This was our last meal at home before heading to NYC and it made a ton, so I just froze the leftovers and now the only thing I have to make for our traditional luck and money New Year's Day meal is the collard greens.

 

 Baked Manicotti with Sausage and Peas and Cheese and Rosemary Breadsticks (recipes by Giada de Laurentiis; modeling by my husband)

This was our Christmas Eve meal. As you can see, it was a very formal affair. I normally do something a little fancier for the Christmas meal I make for the two of us; the first two years of marriage I made individual beef Wellingtons and last year I did steak with Bernaise sauce. But since we were doing a Christmas Day potluck dinner with friends that we knew involved prime rib, I went with something a little more casual.

Every time I make manicotti, I remember why I only make it once in a blue moon. Stuffing those little pasta tubes is a total pain in the ass, but these were so good I didn't mind it too much. SO MUCH CHEESE. I served it with a kale Caesar salad and we opened a bottle of wine from my favorite vineyard back home. A perfect little Christmas Eve feast for two.  

 

Snake Bite Chili Dip (Katie at the Perks)

Our skiing plans last weekend had to be put aside due to M's Achilles injury, so instead we ate an entire batch of this dip and watched college football and basketball. So the weekend wasn't a total bust after all.

This dip is SO SO GOOD. M was a little skeptical; he just couldn't figure how the sweet mango salsa was going to go with the cheese and sausage. Turns out there was no need to worry. We inhaled this as fast as we could. This would be a great addition to your Super Bowl party spread!

 

Princess Salmon with Yogurt-Mustard Dill Sauce (Dinner: A Love Story)

I'm not sure how much of a recipe this is, but I make it a lot. After all the junk over the past few weeks (see above), it was nice to just have something light and healthy. I used some Williams-Sonoma potlatch seasoning on the salmon in place of salt and pepper and served with some steam-in-bag haricots verts and some roasted baby potatoes. The potatoes roast at the same temp as the salmon, so I just prepped the salmon while the potatoes roasted for about 25 minutes and then added the salmon on top for the last 15 minutes. Then just whip up the sauce and microwave the green beans while everything's in the oven. Easy peasy and minimal clean-up!

 

 That about does it for the past 3 weeks. As sad as I am to see the holidays go, I am a creature of habit, so I'm looking forward to getting back into our normal, healthier meal routine.

Menu Monday

Creamy Chicken and Black Bean Enchiladas (Budget Bytes)

Are you tired of me posting Budget Bytes recipes yet? These were really tasty and surprisingly filling. I only had one for dinner but thought I could handle 2 for lunch the next day and couldn't hack it. So this definitely makes more on the side of 6-8 servings and since they were equally as tasty as leftovers, that counts as a winner in my book.

Tuesday night was Wine Club, which meant M was on his own for dinner. The ladies put together an incredible spread for our theme of Spanish Reds and tapas; my contribution was a bag of marcona almonds with rosemary and a container of tapenade, both courtesy of Trader Joe's.

M went and got all chef-y on me by whipping up a creation of his own and after he posted the picture on Instagram, there was a request for an M guest appearance on Menu Monday. Ask and ye shall receive. M's direct quote "Pasta, chicken, marinara, Italian seasoning, garlic, mozzarella...Add lovfe as an ingredient." I will translate for you: Cook 1 package of pasta (your choice) to the package instructions. Mix cooked pasta with a jar of marinara sauce (your choice), 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning, and 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder. Pour into a lightly greased casserole dish and top with grated Mozzarella cheese. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes; top with Parmesan cheese when it comes out of the oven.

On Wednesday night we had our last round of M's players over for dinner. I served Damn Delicious's One-Pot Chili Mac and Cheese, but since it was more like Damn boring and not particularly Delicious, I'm giving you a picture of M vacuuming before the kids showed up (so adorable) and the freaking amazing cookies I made for them. I used my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe but used a half a package of chocolate chips and an entire tub of Trader Joe's mini peanut butter cups instead. Insert heart eyes emoji here.  

 

Fried Chickpea Sandwiches with Roasted Cauliflower (Dinner: A Love Story)

I thought this was pretty good and M ate it. No exactly a huge success, but not a failure. I have to say, for a set of recipes that are supposed to be weeknight friendly, there were a lot of steps (and clean-up) involved. Nothing challenging, but I'm not sure this would be what I consider a weeknight meal. It probably will not make a repeat appearance (although the yogurt sauce was hitting).

 

Last post this week since it's Thanksgiving! Enjoy your time celebrating with family and friends :)

Five on Friday: Thanksgiving

***This post contains affiliate links.***

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and I am so looking forward to celebrating with my family next week and getting to meet our new niece and nephew. I haven't been home since March and I know this is going to be an extra emotional visit for us because it will be the last holiday we celebrate in the house I grew up in. (I got kind of weepy just typing that out.) And since we won't be spending Christmas with my family, we're having a little family Christmas celebration the night before Thanksgiving. My mom even bought a fake tree so that we can help decorate :)

1. Isn't this the most stunning Thanksgiving centerpiece you've ever seen? I would be tempted to add in a few pheasant feathers, but wow. I can't stop looking at it. And it looks like it would be pretty easy to assemble, which is a bonus because I do not have a gift for floral arrangements.

2. When we do Thanksgiving with my family, the libations menu typically consists of beer, wine, and maybe a batch of our wedding cocktails (which, admittedly are the perfect festive fall beverage). The Kitchn posted this recipe for a pitcher of Amber Rush cocktails last week and it just looks so fun! I love the way the star anise looks floating in the pitcher and the combination of rye, citrus, and spiced honey syrup (with the suggested addition of a little ginger beer) sounds pretty spot on.

3. As a rule, I don't think the Thanksgiving menu should be messed with. This meal is not the time to trot out newfangled recipes. It is all about the humble classics. With that said, I am making something a little bit different for dessert this year. There will still be pumpkin and apple pies (duh) and I got my pecan pie fix at our Worksgiving celebration yesterday (pictured above), but I'm trying out a recipe for Buche de Thanksgiving. I typically make a Buche de Noel log for Christmas every year and when I saw this recipe in my 'Cold Weather Cooking' cookbook, I knew I had to try it. Pumpkin cake + cream cheese and toffee filling? Hello, yes please! I'll be sure to snap some pictures and if it's any good, I'll share the recipe. (I've looked everywhere online for it with no luck.)

 

4. I am in love with the idea of hosting Thanksgiving one day. It's one of those things that I dreamed of as a little girl (is that weird?) and I feel like I still won't really be a grown-up until I've hosted a Thanksgiving of my very own. While our current situation doesn't make that likely to happen anytime soon, I can still dream. Right now those dreams pretty much take the form of setting the table (again, probably weird). I have a thing for china and serveware and my current dream table setting includes this pheasant gravy boat, the turkey platter that goes with my beloved Spode Woodland china, and these rustic glam servers.

via

5. Stuffing or dressing? This is a hot debate in our house. I come from a family of people who are decidedly dressing only. My grandmama makes the most amazing dressing from old biscuits, rolls, and Saltine crackers. I cannot wait to dig in next week! M's family is dedicated to stuffing. (M does make an exception for oyster dressing.) I'm normally not very squirmish when it comes to food, but I am completely scared of and grossed out by stuffing and absolutely will not touch it. So what side of the aisle do you fall on?

Two Recipes and A Horse

Most of last week's meals were either repeats or already posted in last week's Menu Wednesday post, but there were two recipes I wanted to share with you today.  

Pasta with Slow-Roasted Tomatoes {Dinner: A Love Story}

DALS is one of my all-time favorite websites and gives me the warm fuzzies about the day when I will have an expanded family to cook for.  Regardless of our DINK status, I am always finding great meal ideas for just the two of us from Jenny and Andy.  This may be one of my favorites from them.  And it is STUPID easy.  I used farfalle instead of penne {it's what we had in the pantry}, dried thyme instead of fresh, and I added the dollop of ricotta at the end. I only used about half the amount of Parmesan called for.  Definitely a new go-to pasta meal.

Stuffed and Grilled Bananas

We didn't use a recipe for this, but I think there are several floating around the interwebs.  We grilled chicken for dinner Friday night and had way too much charcoal going.  M wanted to make the  best of it and we had two bananas sitting in our fruit basket.  We had some graham crackers, shredded coconut, and a Hershey's bar in the pantry.  I crushed up one sheet of graham crackers and mixed with a handful of shredded coconut.  I slit the bananas down their sides, lined each slit with half of a Hershey's bar, and then stuffed in as much of the cracker/coconut mixture as possible.  Then I wrapped each banana individually in foil and we put them on the grill for 15-ish minutes and dug in with spoons. WOW.  Great way to make use of the grill after dinner.  Would be even better stuffed with Nutella...

On Saturday we attended the Virginia Gold Cup with some friends who were visiting.  This was the spread we came up with for 4 people, plus more food in another cooler in the car.  We barely managed to eat half of it, but you better believe we ate every bit of that fried chicken.

While wondering around Member's Hill, we saw a group of people playing something called Bear Pong.  They invited our guys to play.

Which ended in a picture of what appears to be my husband kicking a small child dressed as a pirate. As one does.

I snapped this pic moments before another jockey was thrown from his horse right in front of us. They had to bring the medics out onto the course and it was awhile before he moved, but he was able to walk into the ambulance himself. So scary!

 We NEVER seem to get any photos of the two of us, so I was thrilled to have one to remember such a wonderful day {and to show our grandkids what a stud their granddad was}!

Menu Planning Part Deux

I always get questions/comments from people about our meal planning, and the last post on that topic was pretty popular, so I thought I'd share how I use Pinterest as a meal planning tool.

I'm always surprised to learn that people "pin" recipes and food ideas on Pinterest but never make them.  Based on what I hear from friends and family, that's what most people do.  Nothing wrong with that, but I've found Pinterest to be a great meal-planning tool.  I use recipes I've pinned all the time!

Originally I just had the one board for all of my food inspiration pins. Lately I've found that I had so many recipe pins on one board that I was only ever making the ones that were most recently pinned. So in the past few weeks, I've broken down the boards into categories based on how I plan our meals.

nom noms

{side note: someone please suggest a better name for this board. i don't love it.} 

This was my original food board and is still the one with the most pins.  These are where my "normal" {i.e. with meat/seafood} recipes go.  

meatless mondays

This is one of the newer boards. We've been doing meatless mondays for awhile now and this just makes those recipes that much easier to find.  For reference, we don't eat seafood on meatless mondays, but we do have eggs.

soup sundays

I started this board back in the fall when I started our soup sundays routine.  One of my favorite things about fall is making soups, but before I designated one day a week for soups, I would either make soup every day of the week or forget about soups entirely and would end up only making one or two soups the whole season.

on the side

This is my newest board.  I am terrible at picking/planning sides to go with our main dishes.  I normally just make frozen veggies.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there are so many healthy, creative, and tasty side dishes out there that I feel like I need to up my game a few times a week.  I've had many of these recipes pinned for ages, but they got lost in the mix. Not anymore!

ladies who brunch

Breakfast/brunch is my favorite meal of the day.  I don't really make breakfast; that's M's job. But I love to make big brunch feasts, so now I have a place to collect all of those ideas.  This is the most droolworthy board, in my humble opinion.

sweet treats

Like the side dishes, these were originally pinned on my regular food board, but I kept forgetting about them.  Now whenever I feel like splurging or baking something fun for my coworkers, I've got a quick reference board of new things to try.  

party time

This was one of my early Pinterest boards, but it used to be just for party decor/invitations images.  I started adding dips and other party food to this board because it's just more intuitive, at least the way I think.  I think this is my favorite board!

I'm curious: how many of you make the recipes you pin and how many of you pin it and forget it {or stare at it hungrily}?  No judgement either way! I just think it's interesting to see the different ways people use social media.  If you've made anything, what's your favorite recipe that you've pinned? I'm always looking for new inspiration!

image sources

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7

Friday Favorites

The Super Bowl is upon us! Since my husband's beloved Ravens are playing, today's Friday Favorites is all things Maryland.  Crabcakes and football, y'all!

A different take on the more traditional crab dip that is served at every party in Maryland.  I ADORE traditional crap dip, but this crab rangoon dip would definitely bring a welcome twist to the dip line-up. 

Who doesn't love party printables, especially when they're free?! Simply Create Designs has a fabulous collection up for grabs.

Old Bay hummus {or hoo-mus, as Ina says}.  I mean, hello?!?! How did I not think of this? We already put Old Bay on EVERYTHING else.  I could probs polish off an entire recipe of this. 

For those of us {cough, me, cough cough} who don't feel the need to wear ridiculously overpriced NFL-logoed gear, a purple cashmere sweater will do juuuuuuuust fine. Bonus: it's on sale for $47.99 with code MOREPLEASE!

No Maryland gathering is complete without Berger cookies, a.k.a. my one true love. If you're like most of America and you can't buy them locally, you can go it your own with Blue-Eyed Baker's homemade version.  Or you can order as many as your heart desires from the Bergers website. THESE ARE THE BEST COOKIES EVER MADE.  Don't say I didn't warn you...

Here we go, Ravens!