The reason I wanted to include the iHerb review in this week’s series of posts is that this week (October 3-9) was when I finally got to use some of the goodies I’d bought in our dinners.
First up were these konaberry and kelp noodles that just looked and sounded interesting enough to give a whirl. Of course, I didn’t exactly know what would be the best recipe to use them in so a quick search led me to Coconut Soup with Kelp Noodles & Shrimp. Oh, man, this was good. The kelp noodles were nice in that they didin’t overpower anything (raw they remind me a lot of seaweed salad, no surprise there, but in hot foods they fade into the background in a good way) but added a nice texture to this very yummy soup.
The next night I made a somewhat deconstructed spinach artichoke dip pasta using the spinach spaghetti from Tinkyada, a white sauce, chopped artichokes, and parmesan cheese. I even saved some of the artichoke hearts to sizzle in a small pan to put on top. Now, unfortunately, I didn’t write down everything I did, so I’ll have to try and recreate it later, but it was a tasty experiemnt. The chicken I breaded much like I would the Oven “Fried” Chicken Nuggets in my cookbook, using crushed corn flakes for crunch and whatever seasonings sounded good.
Some nights, simple is the name of the game. A staple option in our house are grilled pork chops (on the George Foreman, in this case), baked sweet potatoes, and a vegetable of some sort (I had okra & tomatoes in the pantry from that time I stocked up on canned goods for the storm, so figured I’d use them). Sage is always good with pork, along with salt, pepper, and garlic. No muss, no fuss, no recipes.
Thursday night was one of those nights where I just couldn’t be bothered to do anything in the kitchen, so we ended up going to IHOP for supper. I have to say, that BLT I had really hit the spot and made me think I need to do sandwich suppers more often.
Friday night was like a taste of Thanksgiving a month or so early. The Chicken Caruso recipe from the previous menu had called for a pineapple-cranberry relish (I’m really not sure how that would have gone) but I completely forgot about it. Instead, since I had the ingredients, I decided to roast some turkey cutlets, top with the relish, and serve with some yellow rice and green beans.
On Saturday I had to go in to my old job for a bit and then run some other errands on town (didn’t want to “waste” that quarter tank of gas and, oh, twist my arm to go shopping) so by the time I got home I wanted something simple and quick. Thank goodness we still have a few freezer meals left and I could quickly defrost and cook up this Taco Soup. Topped with a bit of cheese, some sour cream, and some avocado salsa Verde it was just perfect.
Finally, the meal I’d really been looking forward to: Sunday night’s Beef Ramen Noodle Soup.
This is not the cup of noodles you rehydrate and microwave. The homemade broth, the fresh vegetables, the thinly sliced grilled steak, and the gluten free ramen noodles I ordered from iHerb just made me incredibly happy. Sure, it had a few more moving parts than a lot of dinners, but it was absolutely worth it.
It’s been a while since I shared a menu on the blog, but it wasn’t because I wasn’t cooking, my hands were just busy with other things. It’s been so long, in fact, that I have enough menus to share to cover an entire week’s worth of posts and give you a month’s worth of menu ideas! And with the holidays and their related shenanigans about to kick into high gear, I figured these ideas might help you jazz up your usual weekday fare.
Rewinding way on back to September 19th, we were in the final week of the Retro Recipes throw-back. Monday sounded like a perfect time for some Mexican Midnight Fondue, with a side of refried sweet potatoes, guacamole salad, corn bread and tortillas for dipping, and a bit of a flan for dessert. Thankfully it didn’t take until midnight to make it, though it was a bit more time-intensive than I would normally done on a Monday, but it was also damned tasty and worth the effort!
Tuesday turned out to be a leftovers night (what is it about Tuesday’s sapping someone’s will to cook?) but Wednesday saw us back on track with some Waikiki Meatballs over rice, served with steamed green beans. Polynesian sweet and sour, this one is worth having again. The sauce was the best version of a sweet and sour sauce I’ve had in a while, certainly the best homemade version to date.
Next up was Chicken Caruso and it was… interesting. The best way I can describe it is a slightly grown-up version of mac and cheese with a few veggies tossed in and a shot of sherry in the sauce. Not bad, but not my favorite, either. The BLT salad, on the other hand, was quite tasty. I’ll keep it in the rotation as it’ll easily work year-round.
Friday night we went out to the local Chinese buffet and Saturday brought forth an Autumn Soup–very simple with carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, celery and a rich beef broth. The leftover cornbread from Monday made a good match for the soup and saved some time–always a good thing as the week gets longer and my patience gets shorter. I’d gone into the old office earlier that day and spent the afternoon and evening working on design team projects.Simple and hearty was meant for days like this.
We ended the week with a rich lamb curry over basmati rice and served with a light fruit salad. There was nothing overwhelmingly remarkable about this curry, but each time we have lamb its always a bit of a treat, so what surrounds it doesn’t have to be amazing, just good. The coolness of the chilled fruit is a nice counterpoint to rich, heady sauce.
After this week I was itching to go a bit more modern and try out some new-to-me products I’d ordered from iHerb.com (more on that tomorrow). So stay tuned for more menus as the week goes on!
Risotto has a reputation for being difficult or complicated. That’s far from the truth. Some people complain about how long it takes and that you have to constantly stir it (resulting in all sorts of “hacks” or short-cuts that claim to do it better in less time, but seldom do). Stirring constantly is what created the uniform texture of the risotto, it’s not something to be skipped over, and we’re only talking 20 minutes or so, during which you’re also adding broth in small amounts, so it’s far from the boring drudgery that many make it out to be.
In this week’s View from the Countertop video I show you just how simple it is to make my favorite risotto, and I’ve put the recipe below, as well. I don’t think I’ve ever had this turn out poorly, and I’ve served it alongside steak, chicken, and salmon. Since I was filming this batch, I can tell you that it took exactly 26 minutes from the time I started the camera (just before adding the butter to the pan) and turning it off after making up our plates. And that included going and scolding Duncan at least once for whining at the baby gate keeping him out from underfoot! Add maybe 10 minutes to prep the fish and chop the rosemary; even then this is not a lengthy meal to prepare!
Risotto Friuli-Style with Rosemary and White Wine
From Marcella Cucina, by Marcella Hazan, lightly adapted for Low-FODMAP diets
Serves 4-6
6 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 Tbsp butter
1 T garlic olive oil
1 T chopped fresh rosemary
2 1/2 cups arborio rice
1 cup white wine
Bring the broth to a boil and reduce to a simmer. You want the broth hot so as not to slow down the cooking process.
Melt the butter with the garlic olive oil in a large pot or pan over medium heat. Stir in the chopped rosemary and then the rice.
Raise the heat to medium-high and stir the rice in the butter mixture to coat every grain. Add in the wine and cook, still on medium-high, stirring constantly, until the wine is absorbed.
Add the first cup of broth (about 2 standard ladles worth) and cook and stir until the rice has absorbed the liquid. Then add more hot broth, this time only a single ladle or half a cup at a time, cooking it is absorbed, stirring constantly, repeating until all the broth has been incorporated. This part usually takes 20-25 minutes.
Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the mantecare ingredients. This adds creaminess and richness and is not to be missed! Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve while warm.
We ended up having two nights of take-out (I know, so sad). One was planned but the next night I had a horrible sinus headache and just couldn’t fathom the thought of being in the kitchen, so Todd went and picked up Chick-fil-a and I got to experience the amazingness of the Frosted Lemonade. Oh, man, I think I could have one of those every day and not get tired all summer. I’m definitely on a lemon kick.
Here’s what the rest of the week looked like:
Home-Cooked Meals 6/13-6/19
Monday: Zucchini Crust Pizza
Another as-seen-on-Facebook recipe, this started with the basic crust recipe from Tastemade and I added a meat sauce, tons of mozzarella cheese, and some mini pepperoni slices. Why a meat sauce? It made no sense to me to dirty two dishes to make both the tomato sauce and brown the ground beef. And my zucchini yeilded way more than 4 cups of shreds, so I think we ended up with a double-thick crust. That mean it never crisped up enough to pick up like a slice of normal pizza, but the flavor was really good. I think if/when I make this again I’ll just use some self-rising flour (like gluten-free Bisquick or the like) for a little loft and layer everything in a casserole dish. It’d also make a good freezer meal, I think.
Tuesday: Vegan Corn Chowder
The problem with planning your menu with an eye on the weather is that the weather can shift and leave you with a serious mismatch. Such was the case with the rain holding off until Wednesday and it still being hot and humid on Tuesday night. Oh, well, we always enjoy this corn chowder (from What to Feed Your Raiding Party, the cookbook I wrote), regardless of the weather. I did, however, opt not to make the corn muffins I’d had in mind.
Wednesday: Coconut-Lime Chicken, Purple Rice, and Steamed Green Beans
This recipe from Once a Month Meals looks similar to what I have in our freezer meal recipe reservoir. Usually I’d bake this one, but grilling would be a good idea, too! The purple rice is the last of the bag I brought back from Disney Springs last fall. This time, just making it straight, I could taste a little more of the inherent sweetness in the rice and I definitely would like to pick more of this up next time I find it.
Thursday & Friday: Take out
Thursday was a lettuce wrap from Jimmy John’s (Beach Club is my absolute favorite) and Friday was a Chick-fil-a Cobb Salad and the aforementioned Frosted Lemonade. It was so hot and miserable I was definitely leaning more towards the cold foods, can you tell?
Saturday: Vegetarian Eggs Benedict
As spotted on Cast Iron Cookie, I wasn’t a huge fan of the Hollandaise sauce (it came out too thin for my liking) but the idea of using hashbrowns (Minimalist Bakers’ Hash Brown Haystacks, and I definitely recommend using an egg in the mix) for the base and adding greens instead of the Canadian bacon, that I was all for. Instead of just wilted greens I opted to make up a quick creamed spinach (but kept it fairly thick) for the middle layer. And can I just say that this was my best batch of poached eggs probably ever.
Sunday: Rosemary Risotto with Broiled Salmon
The reason for my being, this week. Since we already talked quite a bit about the risotto, all I did to the salmon was add some salt, pepper, lemon slices, and a sprinkle of dried dill. I put them in shortly after I started the risotto and it was all done at the same time.
That was our week, what’s on your plate for this week?
You might think that making macaroni salad gluten-free or Low-FODMAP is as simple as swapping out the wheat noodles for one of the many readily available rice, corn, or quinoa-based options out there? Alas, it’s not quite that simple, since the non-wheat pastas tend to be very “thirsty” and slurp up all the moisture from the delectable dressing while it sits in the fridge. Sure, it’s okay right after you make it, but give it a single night and you have some dry distant cousin of pasta salad.
In the past I’ve opted to add more dressing to the leftovers or warm up the pasta salad in the microwave (sprinkle a little water on it, like you would rice or any other noodles). It’s okay, but it’s not the same as tucking into leftover macaroni salad the day after the cookout. No where close.
So this past Memorial Day I decided to try something different, thinking back to my days at the plantation and making tea sandwiches.
When you make a tea sandwich, it’s customary to spread a bit of butter on the “inside” of the slices of bread. This prevents the bread from becoming soggy as it sits on the tea tray (or in the fridge if you’re making them in advance). So I figured that, instead of the scant amount of oil I might toss the cooked pasta with to prevent it from sticking, I’d add a generous pour or three of olive oil to the pasta in the collander and let it get good and slick before combining it with the rest of the ingredients. Maybe, just maybe, that coating of oil would act as just enough of a barrier to keep the macaroni salad dressing from disappearing?
I’m happy to report that it worked like a charm! And not just for a single day, but for an entire week! (I made a lot of salad. I always seem to over-prepare for holiday meals, even when it’s just the two of us.)
You can see how the cookout came together on this week’s View from the Countertop video:
As for the recipe… I threw a lot of things together, namely several partial bags of different pastas in the pantry, but below is my best guess for proportions and procedure.
I could have just eaten the pasta salad and been perfectly happy…
Gluten Free Macaroni Salad
About 16 servings
16 oz gluten-free pasta
2-3 bell peppers, diced*
4 carrots, peeled and sliced
1-2 cups frozen green peas*
Olive oil
1/2 bunch green onions, greens sliced
3 celery ribs, diced
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
4 hard boiled eggs, diced (optional)
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
2 Tbsp horseradish-mustard
3/4 cup Greek yogurt
1-2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp parsley
salt and pepper to taste
Bring a large pot of water to a boil, sprinkle in salt and add pasta, followed by peppers, carrots, and green peas. Cook until pasta is al dente (usually around 10 minutes). Drain pasta and vegetables and rinse with cold water to halt the cooking process and cool them down. Toss with a generous amount of olive oil, enough to evenly coat everything, and allow the excess to drain.
In a large bowl, combine the dressing ingredients (mayo through salt and pepper) and mix until smooth. Adjust the seasoning to taste by adding more mustard and vinegar if you like a more tangy dressing or a bit more sugar if you prefer it just on the sweet side.
Add the pasta mixture and the rest of the vegetables (and the chopped eggs, if you’re using them) to the dressing and stir to combine. Check once again that the seasoning is correct before serving, chilled.
Keeps for one week, in the fridge, if it lasts that long.
*To make this lower in FODMAPs, avoid green bell peppers and limit or omit the green peas. The amount is definitely fine for maintenance-level, like I do, especially since the quantities per serving end up pretty small, but always use your best judgement and consider your own tolerance levels.Â
It did keep for a week–I ate the last of it on Sunday afternoon, though I will say one of the pastas I used (my bet is on the corn variety over the brown rice ones) started to get pretty stiff on Friday. (I took a small container with me to work each day as my breakfast, purely for research’s sake, of course.) But the dressing didn’t get soaked up or dry out, so my mission was definitely accomplished in a very tasty manner.
What did the rest of our menu look like?
This week’s menu!
Monday (Memorial Day): Grilled Sausages and Hot Dogs, Corn on the Cob, Macaroni Salad
It was all so goo, and we both over-prepared. Todd offered to pick up the sausages, etc. and he came home with 3 types of Johnsonville brats (Cheddar, Chili Cheese, and New Orleans/Andouille) along with a massive pack of all-beef franks. We grilled about half of them and put the rest in the freezer for another day. The only negative was that the beef hotdogs were really salty compared to everything else–maybe if I’d eaten mine on a bun it would have tempered it a bit, who knows?
Tuesday: Leftovers!
Monday’s mean was so good and so plentiful, and I was so tired by the time Todd got home from work, that we opted for a leftover night.
Wednesday: Hawaiian Chicken Thighs and Hawaiian Luau Rice
At some point last week we got to talking about the chicken legs from Todd’s birthday party and I decided to make them again. The marinade (from The Girl Who Ate Everything) is super-simple and then you just toss them on the grill until done. The rice was a recipe (from Bam’s Kitchen) I’d pinned while planning the party but opted not to make, and I’m kinda glad I didn’t. What with the ham and pineapple and coconut and macadamia nuts, you’d think this would be a fabulous side dish. Sadly, it was lackluster at best. It called for absolutely no salt (I guess the ham and chicken bullion were supposed to cover that base, but they fell far short) and needed a lot of doctoring. A couple days later I had some with one of the chicken thighs chopped up in it and added a dose of soy sauce to the bowl and that perked it right up. So be forewarned and try it with a little extra sauce.
Thursday: Roast Beef Wraps and Carrot Soup
A cooler take on the soup and sandwich dinner, both of these recipes came from The No-Cook, No-Bake Cookbook that I reviewed a couple years ago. The wraps were fairly straightforward (I might have added some cheese, if anything) but got a flavor boost from an Asian-inspired sauce while the cold carrot soup was a bit of a sweet and spicy surprise. Todd isn’t quite as much of a fan of the cold soups as I am, but with the temperature (and humidity) already soaring, I think there’s a good chance more of the no-cook recipes will be used this summer. I’m keeping it handy, at any rate.
Beef, chicken, and pork pan pizza with extra cheese. A worthy splurge, indeed!
Friday: Pizza
So sad that the day I’m home I cop out and we get pizza, right? I know, I know, but I was feeling kinda off all day, almost hungover even though it’d been several days since having any booze, and then the thunder started mid-afternoon and I realized the change in barometric pressure was wreaking havoc on my sinuses. Mystery solved! While we usually will opt for Domino’s, since they have a decent gluten-free crust and deliver, I really didn’t want it that night. I was craving the crispy, chewy, classic pan pizza from Pizza Hut so that’s what we got. Did I pay for it later? A little bit, but it was worth it.
Saturday: Zoodles with Meat Sauce and Goat Cheese
Friday was always meant to be a pizza night, I’d just been planning to make the zucchini-crust pizza that’s making the facebook rounds right now. Since I didn’t, though, I had these zucchini needing to be used, so zoodles it was. The goat cheese was also from that recipe, and if you haven’t melted a little goat cheese into your tomato sauce, please do. It’s so worth it and really amps up the flavor. I also made some quickie cheese toast using leftover hot dog buns.
Sunday: Cheese-Stuffed BBQ Meatloaf, Green Beans, Sweet Potatoes
Classic Sunday dinner of meatloaf and potatoes, courtesy of the freezer. I really do love this meatloaf with its layer of cheese in the center and barbecue sauce on top. This recipe is from The Virtuous Wife, though I sub rolled oats for the bread crumbs and don’t bother with the plastic wrap layer–I just put the frozen packet in the loaf pan to defrost and open up the top of the foil before baking. If I’m careful enough, the loaf pan stays clean!
And that was our week!
In addition to the macaroni salad video I linked above, I also put up a simple video about the Low-FODMAP diet and why I make some of the choices that I do. You can find it here: Low-Food-Wha?! on YouTube
Or so goes my thinking when I look back at the last week’s meal plan!
Creating the week’s menu is a three step process these days:
Check my “saved for later” tab on Feedly for anything I’ve flagged food-wise over the last 2 weeks
Look through my Freezer Meal spreadsheet to check quantities and last-eaten dates
Check the weekly flyer for the supermarket for what’s on sale.
It was that last step that got me kind of excited about this week’s menu as a whole. Excited to spend a good long while in a hot kitchen, frying things in the middle of the week. Go figure.
But look at this dinner, wouldn’t you go to the effort?
Fried Catfish, Hush Puppies, and Cheese Grits
And the rest of the week was pretty tasty, too, come to that!
Home-cooked meals for the week of 5/16-5/22
Monday: Spinach-Artichoke Quesadillas + Saffron Rice with Peas
We really do love appetizers for dinner so I’d flagged a list of quesadilla variations and this one, from The Whole Bite, was the winner for the week. I used sundried tomato wraps instead of plain (I’ve had them in the freezer for a while, and you can even find them in gluten free varieties in some stores) and it was a really filling meal. I suppose I could have skipped the rice, but it just didn’t feel right to only eat a quesadilla for dinner. These also held very well for lunches later in the week.
Tuesday: Seeded Chicken Salad + Mixed Greens + Garlic Rolls
Hey, one of my own recipes! The salad is made in the usual way and I made a quick dressing of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and dill for the greens. The garlic rolls were regular rolls, drizzled with garlic oil before being popped in the oven. The oil drips down to the bottom of the pan and, as the rolls bake, they soak up all that lovely garlic flavor. Mmmmm….
Wednesday: Fried Catfish + Cheese Grits + Hush Puppies
You can check out the full play-by-play of the making of Wednesday’s dinner in this week’s View from the Countertop video, but it started with the ad in the weekly flyer and turned out so good it was well worth frying something in the middle of the week. I may have already said that, but you have to understand just how much I dislike frying things in order to know how good this fried catfish was that I consider the grease particles in the air and the house smelling of fried food worth it. It was that good. And if you need a good source for coarse stone-ground grits, check out BradleysCountryStore.com. They’re local but they ship. Get some sausage while you’re at it.
Thursday: Chicken Tortilla Soup
This freezer meal recipe came from Loving My Nest and was surprisingly fabulous. I mean, it’s hard to screw up tortilla soup but it can be done. And since this was the first time actually cooking this freezer meal, it’s always a mystery how it will turn out. Definitely looking forward to the next time we make this and we will be making another batch for the freezer.
Friday: Cumin-Coriander Pork Chops + Baked Sweet Potatoes + Green Beans
Just what it says on the label. Bone-in pork chops seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, and some garlic oil. Fabulous combination, you should try it some time!
Saturday: Beef & Vegetable Stir Fry + Brown Rice
Not quite sure which site I got this freezer meal recipe from, but it’s fairly basic: vegetables, sauce, and meat with a bit of the sauce added as a marinade. Now, the one thing I’ve noticed is that while the quantity of vegetables seems fine at first, once they’ve been frozen and cooked they shrink. A lot. So the first time I made this I had half a head of cabbage on hand so I diced it up and threw it in. This time I bought a bag of shredded cabbage expressly for the purpose and added some frozen peas in for good measure. So whatever recipes you find for a freezer meal stir fry, chances are good you’re going to want to double the vegetables. Trust me on this one.
Sundays: Leftovers
Since our Bark Busters appointment was scheduled for 5:30, we decided to play dinner by ear. We’re quite a few days ahead on lunches (cooking every night plus skipping the prepared meals on the weekends, this tends to happen from time to time) so it was easiest just to grab one of those to save time. We both opted for the catfish leftovers and they were just lovely.
I’ll go into how the Bark Busters session went in another post, but things are changing around here for Duncan… I hope we all survive his puppyhood!
