Strawberry Oat Frozen Dessert

Between my lactose intolerance and B's allergy to eggs, we don't buy very much regular ice cream anymore. Lucky for us, Trader Joe's keeps coming out with new vegan ice creams to try, made with different types of plant-based milks. One of the ones we tried earlier this fall was this strawberry oat frozen dessert with almond brittle and candied strawberries ($3.99). 

The base of the ice cream was oat milk, and the ingredients also included tapioca syrup, coconut oil, and agave syrup, with color provided by beets, annatto, and strawberries. This was the second vegan ice cream we tried from Trader Joe's, and we didn't like it as much as the other one (the vanilla one made with almond beverage that we still need to write a review for). A thought it felt more crystal-like and icy in texture because of the oat milk, while my biggest issue with it was the almond brittle. I found that I was still chewing the hard little bits of almond brittle even after all the strawberry flavor of the ice cream was gone, and I just wasn't a big fan of the almond brittle on its own. We liked the flavor of the strawberry ice cream itself, but noticed few candied strawberries. The overall ice cream was fine because the strawberry was good, but it wasn't as good as some of the other flavors, especially the vanilla.

Buy again? No. This was fine, but we prefer the vanilla-almond ice cream. If they were out of that one, we'd probably wait for it to come back or see what other new flavors TJ's comes up with next!

Week 45 - Sous Vide

When the Week 45 challenge came up as sous vide, I was really happy that I wasn't officially participating in the challenge, because I had zero desire to do this. I participated in the sous vide challenge back in 2016, making some salmon that actually turned out really well, but there were a bunch of reasons I didn't want to do it this time:

1. We still don't have a sous vide machine, and the effort and attention required to rig up an alternative arrangement (beer cooler or oven or stovetop) and keep the temperature steady was more than my brain wanted to deal with at the moment.

2. The last time I did this with salmon, if it didn't come out right, I was okay with taking the small chance of something going wrong with A and I eating maybe raw, maybe sort-of-cooked salmon, but I'm not willing to chance that on our toddler's developing digestive system.

3. If I tried doing something sous vide and it did turn out poorly, it would have been a lot more difficult to put together a late plan B dinner with a toddler who needed to eat and had been surrounded by the sounds and smells of cooking for so long.

Honestly, I just didn't want to do it, and so I didn't. On to Week 46! (Or, on this blog, backwards to all the posts I haven't finished/written yet!)

Week 44 - Apples

The Week 44 theme, apples, came at just the right time in the fall season, but I wasn't sure what to make. I didn't really want to make dessert, but I'm also not a huge sweet-savory dinner person, plus uncooked apples aren't great for little kids (choking hazard), so what to do? I've been doing a lot of cooking events on Yelp, so the answer came to me instead. I signed up for a cooking class where they made a creamy chicken and mushroom dish using hard cider, so adapting that became our apples challenge!

I'm not going to put up a fully-written recipe, since it's not mine to share and I don't know a source to link to for the original recipe, but I'll briefly mention the ingredients and what was made. The ingredients I used (which were heavily adapted from the original, since not only did I not have hard cider, but I didn't have any apple cider, so I used apple juice) were:

- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts ($7.18)

- salt and pepper for the chicken ($0.03)

- olive oil for the pan ($0.10)

- butter ($0.27)

- cremini mushrooms ($5.58)

- 1 red onion ($0.60)

- 2 large spoonfuls of minced garlic ($0.15)

- 8 oz package of apple juice ($0.30)

- chopped parsley for garnish ($0.40)

- heavy cream: substituted milk and butter ($0.54)

- 1 box chickpea rotini ($2.12)

Note that the cost for the milk/butter heavy cream substitute is much higher than it should have been, but that's because we had to do it the equivalent of 3 times. More on that later. The approximate cost of dinner was $17.27, which feels a little high for this dish, especially with apple juice instead of hard cider, but the cremini mushrooms and chicken from Amazon Fresh cost more than they would have if we had been able to get them from Costco or Trader Joe's.

To make the dish, you basically cook the chicken, browning it in the pan on both sides, then remove it, cook the mushrooms in butter, remove them to the same plate as the chicken, then add the onion and garlic to the pan with more butter, cook them down, add apple juice (hard cider, really, but apple juice for us) to reduce to start the sauce, then add the heavy cream, make the cream sauce, add the chicken and mushrooms back in, season with some freshly ground black pepper if needed, spoon over some cooked pasta, and then top with parsley to garnish.

Sounds straightforward, but we didn't buy heavy cream (not a fan of cooking with it in an attempt to keep a healthier kitchen), so I was going to substitute milk and butter. I tried mixing milk with melted butter like a recipe I found said to do, but it came out hard and clumpy with a consistency more like a grated radish. Into the trash it went. Then I remembered that I had previously added milk straight into some dishes without issue, so I did that, but then it curdled and we were left with clumpy bits of milk separated out from the liquid. Apparently that's edible, but it looked really unappetizing. I got a bit frustrated, thinking I had ruined our entire dinner, so A took over, heating up some milk in a separate pan on the stove and then adding it in to the sauce, fixing our sauce enough that you would never even know a mishap occurred. Grateful he was able to step in to fix my mini-disaster.

After the entire milk debacle and all of our substitutions, how was it? It was fine, but it won't make our favorite home cooking list anytime soon. I'm sure it wasn't nearly as good as it would have been using hard cider or shallots, some of the original ingredients, or actual heavy cream for a cream sauce. You could definitely taste that sweet apple juice that we added, which didn't really get balanced out by anything else, but at least the apples challenge dish tasted like apples!

Week 43 - Food Mashups

The Week 43 theme was food mashups. I think when I first saw it, it was late at night, and I couldn't even comprehend what that meant. After reading some of the comments on Reddit, it made so much more sense. Cheeseburger pie, cheeseburger pizza, sushi burritos, baked potato pizza, the possibilities were pretty much endless. Honestly, it's also very similar to how we eat these days anyway, pairing all sorts of dishes with tots or pasta since they're easier for B to eat than some of the other smaller grains. I wanted to do something a little more composed though, so after reading over a few different recipes for taco pasta, I came up with a plan.

The ingredients for our food mashup were:

- 1 box of chickpea rotini ($2.12)

- 1 tbsp olive oil ($0.10)

- 1 yellow onion ($0.45)

- 1 red bell pepper ($1.50)

- 1 green bell pepper ($0.90)

- 1 heaping spoonful of minced garlic ($0.10)

- 1 package of TJ's beefless beef ($2.99)

- 3 scallions ($0.40)

- about 1/2 bottle of Pace mild salsa ($1.34)

- a few large spoonfuls of sour cream ($0.59)

- a few handfuls of shredded cheddar cheese ($1.20)

- taco seasoning: chili powder, coriander, paprika, salt, freshly ground black pepper, garlic powder, cumin, oregano (didn't measure, just eyeballed it and adjusted to taste) ($0.50)

It's a little hard to estimate the cost of this one since most of it was not measured, but the approximate amount was $12.19. It was enough for dinner for the three of us, plus a little extra for brunch the next day.

The steps for making the pasta were:

1. Prep - cook pasta, chop onion, chop red pepper, chop green pepper, chop scallions, make taco seasoning.

2. Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook until translucent, then add peppers. Once peppers have softened a bit, add garlic, cook for a minute or so, and then add beefless beef. Add the taco seasoning, and make sure everything is mixed together well. Add water, a tbsp or so at a time, as needed if everything starts to stick at any point during the cooking process.

3. Add half the salsa and mix into the beef mixture. Taste and add seasonings if needed (didn't add anything here).

4. Add pasta into the skillet with the beef mixture, and mix together well. Add sour cream and the other half of the salsa, and make sure everything is coated well. Sprinkle in some cheddar cheese and stir in well. [I originally had only added a small amount of salsa, but after tasting it with the sour cream, it needed more. I like how it turned out, adding more salsa in this step, so I've written it as we made it.]

5. Serve in bowls, topped with additional cheese if desired!

You might notice that I haven't actually referred to the name of the dish in this post, only mentioning that I looked at recipes for taco pasta or that I made pasta. The main reason for that is that the name evolved as I was making it. I intended first for it to be taco pasta, more Mexican-style with onions and cilantro, but then I didn't want to buy a package of cilantro just for this (and also wasn't in the mood to clean and chop it). So I switched it to an American-style taco with chopped tomato and cheddar cheese, but then our tomato was just on the edge of going bad, so that was out. I thought maybe it should be burrito pasta, but there were no beans in it, so then I realized what corresponded best to what I made - quesadilla pasta! There was a beefless beef filling and cheese, plus salsa and sour cream, which you would normally find on the side of a quesadilla. Perfect name for our mashup.

As for the taste, we really liked it. I didn't think using the Pace salsa instead of just seasonings would make that much of a difference, but it did. Very happy with our choice to buy that, and that it added so much flavor while being mild enough for B to eat. Would make this again!

Hardwood Smoked Ahi Tuna

We love smoked salmon in our household, so when we saw that Trader Joe's had a new product that was smoked ahi tuna, we knew we had to try it. The full product name was "sesame crusted hardwood smoked ahi tuna," and it was indeed crusted with lots of white and black sesame seeds. The ingredient list was pretty simple - just tuna, salt, sesame seeds, sesame oil, and hardwood smoke (but which hardwood? Curious minds want to know!).

The back of the package listed several suggestions for how to use the tuna - chopping it up for a salad, adding it to a rice bowl, making smoked tuna sushi, eating it with a bagel and cream cheese, or just eating it plain. Although smoked tuna sushi sounded like a great idea (haven't had sushi in forever), we decided to just pair it with some white rice, edamame, soy sauce, and sesame oil for a very simple bowl lunch. (I don't know if I would call it a poke bowl - haven't had one of those in a long time either - because there weren't really any other toppings, but I guess it could be a very barebones one.)

The tuna looked really good coming out of the package, but we didn't love it as much as we thought we would (especially considering all the internet raves). It tasted fishy, and the texture was a bit tougher to chew than we expected. Also, we knew it would be somewhat salty since it was smoked fish (and one package is 1210 mg of sodium), but it tasted really salty. Combined with plain edamame and rice, it did make for a nice, light, healthy lunch, and the other parts of the bowl did temper the salt and fishiness a little bit, but we probably wouldn't recommend eating it plain.

Buy again? Not for us. I wasn't a fan of the fishiness, and for both of us, it was just not as good an option as other products at TJ's. We prefer the smoked salmon that TJ's sells. Not 100% sure what the price comparison is between the two, since that's the one TJ's receipt from the past couple of months that we can't find, but the internet tells me it's $5.99 for the tuna (50 cents cheaper than the smoked wild sockeye for the same portion size). That's not a huge difference, so between the two, we'd pick the wild sockeye instead.

Almond Beverage Chocolate Bar

One thing we really like about Trader Joe's is that they keep coming out with more and more vegan and dairy-free products. This almond beverage chocolate bar ($2.99 for 2.5 oz) is one of those, substituting almond beverage (almond flour and water, basically almond milk but you can't say milk!) for the milk, great for people who are vegan or lactose-intolerant. The chocolate was creamy and tasted like a regular milk chocolate bar, which is good since that seemed to be what they were going for. We didn't really taste any almond flavor to it at all.

Buy again? Sure, if we were in the mood for a chocolate bar. I didn't eat that much of it, since I'm not a huge plain chocolate fan, but A thought it was a good substitute for milk chocolate if you wanted something without dairy.

Dutch Spicy Kaas

We haven't reviewed a Trader Joe's cheese here in a long time, but our most recent taste test was for the Dutch spicy kaas. We love Dutch cheese, so we were excited to try this one, especially since it said it was made with peppers, which sounded unique.

First thought was that the cheese was so pretty! It was speckled throughout with orange and green, which we thought was from the peppers. The flavor tasted a little bit spicy (only in parts and not really that much), but no real definitive flavor of bell peppers that we could find. Oddly, the ingredient list didn't list any peppers - just milk, salt (it was very salty), starter, rennet, "flavour," and coloring from beta carotene and spirulina. Are the peppers just part of the flavor catch-all? They weren't even the direct source of the coloring. Maybe it's just because we're cheese novices, but it was all very confusing.

This cheese was a combination of cow's milk and goat's milk cheese, but for a cheese containing goat milk, it was a lot harder than we thought it would be. The texture was kind of similar to a hard cheddar cheese. In the end, we thought it was fine, but nothing we'd go out of our way to try again. Especially since it was $15.99/lb (and only in big blocks, so ours was $9). Maybe our expectations were too high because the description was so intriguing. Glad we tried it, especially because it looked so interesting, but it was just okay.

M's rating: 7/10

A's rating: 6.5/10

Buy again? Probably not.

Week 34 - Figs

The Week 34 challenge came up as figs, which weren't the easiest thing for us to get in a pandemic, so I considered skipping it. Since I'm not a huge fan of mixing fruit into savory dishes, if I did get figs, I was just going to want to make Ottolenghi's roasted sweet potatoes and figs again, which I already did for a challenge in 2017. A couple of people on Reddit mentioned their difficulty in getting figs, and it was suggested that perhaps they use something like dates, since those are often interchangeable with figs in recipes. Considering the next recipe in Ottolenghi's Jerusalem used dates, that seemed like a logical place to go.

It took two years to make the first two recipes in Jerusalem, and over two years since the last one, we were finally moving on to the third recipe. I really thought we would move through the book a little faster than this, but first, not cooking that much for the second half of pregnancy plus the first 9 months or so after B was born, and then being in the salad section of the book which isn't super new eater/toddler-friendly, continuing on this cookbook project wasn't really on my mind. Since pandemic living meant we had different options for incorporating new meals into our days, I decided to make this for lunch since A was thankfully still working from home and B wouldn't really be able to eat it with all the chopped nuts.

The third recipe in the book was for a baby spinach salad with dates and almonds. Although I didn't love that I would need to mix fruit with savory again, after how well the first recipe in the book turned out (the sweet potatoes with figs), I trusted Ottolenghi on this one. Other than not measuring everything, I tried to stick closely to the recipe, hoping it would come out as intended.

The ingredients for our version of the salad were:

- 1/2 red onion ($0.50)

- 2-3 handfuls of Medjool dates ($1.66)

- about 1 tbsp white wine vinegar ($0.07)

- salt ($0.02)

- 2 tbsp butter ($0.18)

- about 2 tbsp olive oil, divided ($0.20)

- 1.5 whole wheat pitas (about 3.75 oz) ($1.39)

- 1/2 cup whole roasted and unsalted almonds ($1)

- a couple tsp sumac ($0.15)

- a few shakes of red pepper flakes ($0.02)

- 1 bag of baby spinach ($2.29)

- juice of 1 lemon ($0.39)

The salad cost about $7.87, which was less expensive than almost any lunch we would get if we dined out. Sounded good to us!

I thought this salad was relatively straightforward in terms of prep and that it wouldn't take more than half an hour, even at my glacial speed. The one thing I didn't account for, however, was that I'd never worked with Medjool dates before. I'd had dates, but never made them at home, so I had a lot of questions. Did they need to be washed? Did I need to peel the skins off? How would I know if they were fresh (even though we just bought them two days earlier)? The problem was, having never had one whole before, I didn't even know the questions to ask in advance, so I had to keep pausing to look things up, and as a result, prepping took far longer than it should have.

The steps for making the salad were:

1. Prep (part 1) - thinly slice the onion, remove the pits from the dates, and quarter the dates lengthwise.

2. In a small bowl, combine the white wine vinegar, onion, dates, and a pinch of salt. Mix with your hands, and marinate for about 20 minutes. [The instructions said to drain the residual vinegar here and discard, but we didn't have any.]

3. Prep (part 2) - coarsely chop almonds, and tear pita into pieces about 1.5 inches in width.

4. In a medium skillet, heat the butter with about 1 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat. Add pita and almonds, and stir continuously for about 5 minutes until the pita is crunchy and golden (or in our case, browned since we used whole wheat pita).

5. Remove skillet from heat, and add the sumac, red pepper flakes, and a pinch of salt. Allow to cool a bit. [We didn't have that much time, since my Medjool dates research took so long, but at least allowed it to cool enough to be touched without burning my hands.]

6. In a large bowl, add the spinach, pita and almond mixture, date and onion mixture, another tbsp of olive oil, and the lemon juice. Mix well. [I needed to use my hands because nothing else was working.] Season to taste if needed. [Nothing needed to be added here.]

This salad turned out really well! It was far more filling than I thought it would be before making it, but it did have a lot of pita and almonds in it, in addition to the dates. The sweet dates worked well with the rest of the salad, and it still made for a good savory salad. Although not our favorite salad, we would make this again.

Jerusalem Cookbook Project Rankings:

1. Roasted sweet potatoes and fresh figs

2. Baby spinach salad with dates and almonds

3. Na'ama's fattoush

Week 33 - Food in Disguise

The theme for the Week 33 challenge was food in disguise. They had the same theme back in 2016 when I attempted a (slice of a) meatloaf layer cake, so I wasn't sure what I would make this time, if anything. Some people are really creative when it comes to this type of challenge, but I often come up blank since my creative side has sadly kind of dried up over the years. In the end, I decided to make the same thing again but in cupcake form, which I had considered that time but hadn't done. We hadn't had meatloaf in so long, so this seemed like a good time. Not really a new recipe for the challenge, but it was completely new to B who had never had meatloaf before.

I know I did the breakdown for cost when I originally made this meatloaf for the historical foods challenge in 2014, but I'm curious to see how it has changed over the past six years. The ingredients for these meatloaf cupcakes (slightly changed because we had no Italian bread crumbs and can't currently cook with eggs) were:

- 1 tbsp olive oil ($0.10)

- 1 onion, chopped ($0.63)

- 5 garlic cloves, minced ($0.15)

- 8 oz cremini mushrooms, chopped ($2.79)

- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.03)

- 7 tbsp ketchup ($0.28)

- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce ($0.25)

- 2/3 cup panko bread crumbs ($0.27)

- garlic powder ($0.03)

- oregano ($0.05)

- basil ($0.05)

- just under 1/3 cup milk ($0.10)

- 2 flax eggs ($0.16)

- 1-1/3 lb ground turkey ($4)

The total for the meatloaf portion was $8.89, the mashed potato "frosting" added another $1 (guessing - can't find the receipt), and I made carrots on the side for another $2 or so, bringing the grand total to $11.89. Not much more than it was back in 2014, which was pretty surprising to me. The mashed potatoes were just from the frozen aisle at Trader Joe's, since I figured (correctly) that the meatloaf was going to take up the majority of my time and attention.

The steps for making the meatloaf cupcakes were fairly similar to when we made it as a meatloaf and a meatloaf cake. They were:

1. Prep - chop onion, garlic, mushrooms. Make flax eggs. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook until softened, then add garlic and cook another minute or so, and then add mushrooms, some salt and pepper, continuing to cook until there is no more liquid left in the pan.

3. Remove the onions and mushrooms from heat, and move to a large bowl to cool off, combining them with 3 tbsp ketchup and 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce.

4. In a medium bowl, combine the panko bread crumbs with the garlic powder, oregano, basil, and milk. Mix well. [This was Italian bread crumbs in the original recipe, but we didn't have any, so I combined panko with some Italian seasonings. It was also supposed to be a cup, but we only had about 2/3 cup left, so I just added slightly less milk. The meatloaf seemed fine with less bread crumbs to bind it, but I would have used more if we had more.]

5. Add the flax eggs and bread crumb mixture to the onions and mushrooms along with a little more salt and pepper. Stir well to combine.

6. Add the ground turkey to the large bowl and mix.

7. Grease a muffin pan, and add turkey mixture to each cup as evenly as possible. [It was a perfect fit for 12 muffins/cupcakes!]

8. Brush each cup with the remaining ketchup so that the entire top of each muffin is coated with ketchup.

9. Bake for about 40 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 170 degrees. [We baked it for 40 minutes, and it was about 200 degrees when we pulled them out. They were fine.]

10. Make mashed potatoes. [Ours were 5 minutes in the microwave, so that worked here, but if you're making mashed potatoes from scratch, would probably need to start earlier! We also used the baking time to make our side dish of carrots.]

11. Place meatloaf on a platter, and spread the mashed potatoes on top like frosting. [You could pipe it on, but it was really late. Didn't have time to consider doing that, and I'm not very good at frosting.]

We really liked the meatloaf cupcakes, but we like meatloaf and they were basically just meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The meatloaf was just as good in muffin form as it has been in loaf form, so we were happy about that. As usual, we finished all the meatloaf in one night, and it was mostly the two of us, since B was sort of lukewarm about the whole dinner. It was funny, because a lot of people had been interpreting the food in disguise theme as a way to hide vegetables in other foods so their kids/other family members would eat it, but B was the opposite and would have been more interested in the vegetables themselves. I even had to point out the mushroom pieces to get him to consider eating more of it. Maybe he'll like it better next time if I don't chop the mushrooms so small. We still love this meatloaf recipe, so we should probably make it more often!

Saddle Potato Crisps

One of the new snacks at Trader Joe's this summer was the sea salted saddle potato crisps ($1.49). Made from potato, sunflower oil, corn meal, rice flour, sea salt, and other corn products, they looked like the TJ's answer to Pringles, even using the same type of container.

We don't really have much to say about these. They were fine, but kind of boring, especially since they only came in the plain sea salt flavor. A liked them more than I did, but wasn't very excited about them since he usually prefers flavored Pringles. I do too, but I also thought regular Pringles tasted better than these and had a better crunch/texture to them. The photo on the TJ's blog (which we looked at after finishing the crisps) topped them with salsa, cheese, and cilantro, and while that does look tasty, you could do that with any type of chips, and I'm not sure how much these crisps would really add to that combo. Nothing necessarily wrong with these, but the most interesting thing about them was the package illustration.

Buy again? No, not for us.

Week 31 - Cucumber

The Week 31 challenge was announced as cucumber, and at first, I wasn't sure how that challenge was going to go in our household. Crunchy cucumbers are a bit of a choking hazard for babies, so even though we like eating cucumbers, especially in salads, we hadn't really bought any since we started doing family dinners with B. A was still working from home, so I thought about just making a cucumber onion salad for lunch, one that I hadn't made in over a decade. The other option was tzatziki, the only thing B had ever had with cucumbers before, since the grated cucumber there would be much easier for a beginning eater like B. But did tzatziki spotlight cucumber enough to work for the challenge? I decided that it was good enough for us, and picked out a recipe on Cookie + Kate that looked like a good place to start. 

Cucumber and dill too, but forgot to get a picture with those before I chopped them up

The ingredients for our adapted version of tzatziki were:

- 1 English long seedless cucumber ($1.79)
- 1.5 cups yogurt ($3)
- about 2 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)
- about 1/3 cup chopped dill ($1.33)
- a couple tsp lemon juice ($0.15)
- a few shakes of garlic powder ($0.05)
- one spoonful of jarred minced garlic ($0.10)
- a few grinds of salt ($0.02)

The cost for the tzatziki was about $6.64. It probably would have been about $1 less if we used 365 yogurt instead of Siggi's, but that's what was open at the time. We ate the tzatziki with carrots in a dill butter sauce (using up the rest of the dill), some turkey meatballs, and some Right Rice, so the total for dinner was probably about $12 (hard to calculate some of that stuff), right about average.

The steps for making the tzatziki were:

1. Wash and peel the cucumber.

2. Grate the cucumber on the large holes of a box grater. Put the grated cucumber into a colander sitting on top of a bowl, and let the cucumber drain while doing other prep work.

3. Wash the dill, pull off the fronds, and finely chop. [This step took way longer than planned, because our dill had already started to go bad a day after buying it.]

4. Squeeze out any remaining water from the cucumber. [The original recipe said to squeeze it out over the sink in a towel, but I tried that and our towel broke. So I just squeezed it out in my hands over the colander. I'm sure it wasn't completely dry or as dry as it could have been, but it worked just fine.]

5. In a large bowl, combine the cucumber, dill, yogurt, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic powder, minced garlic, and salt. Season to taste.

6. Let tzatziki sit for 5 minutes, taste again, and season if necessary. [I didn't add anything.]

7. Chill tzatziki until ready to eat. [Ours chilled for at least an hour and got even better.]

I really liked this version of tzatziki and would make it again. It was a great accompaniment for the meatballs, rice, and carrots, and also good on its own by the spoonful. A made some tzatziki for our Greek New Year's Eve feast back in 2017 with more garlic and no dill, and while he thought this version was good, he preferred the one he made. As a household, we're huge fans of tzatziki, so I would certainly not be opposed to trying as many versions as possible so we can refine a recipe of our own!

Week 30 - Cartoon

The "inspiration" weeks of the cooking challenge are often difficult for me, trying to figure out dishes inspired by books or music or things of that nature. When the Week 30 challenge was announced as cartoon, I had no idea what I was going to make. Not many concrete ideas were coming to mind other than Simpsons donuts (which I didn't want to make), but I did think about food-related cartoons like Food Wars, a show I stopped watching early on but A has watched most of. After talking through different ideas, my original plan was to make the sumire karaage roll from Food Wars, but that would have required going to an Asian grocery store, breaking open and figuring out how to use the air fryer, and learning some other new techniques. Eventually I decided that that was more than I could realistically handle right now, so I switched and decided to make a burger from Bob's Burgers, a show I've only seen every so often but have enjoyed reading about the burgers from.

Lucky for me, back in 2018, Blue Apron partnered with Bob's Burgers and put out three recipes inspired by the show, including one for a cheeseburger with caramelized shallots, aka The Absentee Shallot Burger. (Kind of timely for 2020...) Since we weren't getting the ingredients in a Blue Apron box, and since we were going to pair the burger with pre-made tots instead of making their side dish of roasted potatoes with fontina cheese, it took a little more planning to separate out all the steps in their instructions and figure out what actually related to the burger. After doing all that, I made a bunch more modifications and additions (more than I usually do), and came up with a burger plan that, at least on paper, sounded good.

The ingredients for our modified Absentee Shallot Burger were:

- 1 pint of grape tomatoes, chopped ($2.99)
- olive oil ($0.30)
- white wine vinegar ($0.07)
- 5 shallots, finely chopped ($0.54)
- 1-1/3 lb ground turkey ($4)
- a couple tsp of chopped parsley ($0.49)
- about 1 tsp honey ($0.08)
- about 2 tsp dijon mustard ($0.14)
- 1 flax egg ($0.08)
- a couple tsp of panko ($0.10)
- salt and freshly ground black pepper ($0.03)
- garlic powder ($0.05)
- about 2 tbsp goat cheese ($2, although perhaps I should count the whole $3.99 since we forgot to finish it in time)
- 1 small spoonful of garlic spread ($0.30)
- burger buns ($1.50)

The cost for the burgers was about $12.67, and the tots we ate it with were probably another dollar or so. According to various sites, the price of a Blue Apron meal comes out to about $8-9 per person (not sure when that was calculated), so if that's the case, we still came out ahead, and we probably used more of each ingredient than they'd send.

The steps for making our version of the Absentee Shallot Burger were:

1. Prep - wash and chop tomatoes, wash and chop parsley leaves, peel and finely chop shallots.

2. Make tomato relish. Combine chopped tomatoes in a bowl with about 1 tbsp of olive oil, about 1 tbsp of white wine vinegar, salt, and pepper. Season to taste and set aside.

3. In a large skillet, add some olive oil and cook the shallots until softened. Remove from heat.

4. In a large mixing bowl, combine the ground turkey, cooked shallots, parsley, honey, dijon mustard, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and flax egg. Mix until all the ingredients are well-combined. If too wet, add some panko.

5. Form the meat mixture into burgers. Heat olive oil in the large skillet, and cook the burgers until browned on each side and the internal temperature is at least 165 degrees F.

6. While burgers are cooking, make the goat cheese spread by combining the goat cheese, garlic spread, and a splash of olive oil and white wine vinegar until smooth.

7. Once burgers are done cooking, remove from heat and place burgers on paper towels.

8. Assemble burgers by spreading the goat cheese spread on a burger bun, topping it with the burger, and then adding the tomato relish on top.

Our thoughts on the burger:

- I changed the burger mix a lot from the original, which was just ground beef, shallots, salt and pepper. I added a flax egg first because I wasn't sure what was binding the whole thing together, and then added more seasonings - parsley and garlic powder - for more flavor. The Blue Apron recipe included ingredients and steps for a honey mustard, but it was supposed to be drizzled on the potatoes instead. Since it seemed like a complementary flavor, I decided to just put it in the burgers.

- Our meat mixture was so much wetter than any turkey burger I'd made before, even after adding some last minute panko, so I couldn't actually form them into burgers and just ended up dropping handfuls into the oiled pan. They stayed together really well though, so I guess it worked even if they weren't well-shaped burgers.

- We used whole wheat burger buns, and the ones we used really took away from the flavors of the rest of the recipe. All the components tasted good, but together, everything tasted a little subdued. I didn't have time, and the oil had blackened quite a bit in the existing skillet, so I didn't toast the buns, but I don't think it would have made a difference in this assessment for me. Eating the burger, goat cheese spread, and tomatoes without the bread tasted so much better than with the burger bun. I actually think putting those three components into a large lettuce leaf (protein style!) would be really good. A thought the buns we used were a little too dense and that they had too much of their own flavor, so it didn't really bring out the flavors of what I actually made. He thought a squishy white hamburger bun would have been better than these.

- Despite the five shallots turning into nearly a cup of chopped shallots, I didn't taste any shallots at all in the turkey burger. It could have been because I added more seasonings, but I think the goat cheese spread would have covered any shallot flavor even if I hadn't. We almost forgot the shallots were even in there, which wouldn't be a big deal if it weren't called the Absentee Shallot Burger.

I love turkey burgers, and I thought this one turned out well, even if I would have preferred it sans bread. I would make it again and just eat it on its own (healthier that way anyway). A wasn't a huge fan of the bun either. He said that he should have tried the components separately without it, so he can't give an accurate judgment of the burger because of that, but that the goat cheese-garlic spread was tasty. Lastly, B, unlike me, wasn't a huge fan of the turkey burger (hasn't been a huge fan of meat generally these days, or meat-tasting things like Impossible Burger, with the exception of BBQ), but he would probably give an enthusiastic thumbs-up to the tomato relish, his favorite part. In the end, planning out this recipe was a lot more fun than I thought it would be, and even if we don't ever make it again, I'm really glad I did it.

Lemony Arugula Basil Salad Kit

Trader Joe's came out with a very summery-sounding salad this year, the lemony arugula basil salad kit, and we've picked up a bag on each of our two most recent trips. The salad combines arugula, carrots (looked like shaved carrots of many colors, if you're familiar with their produce), chopped almonds, and shaved parmesan with a basil lemon vinaigrette. According to the nutrition facts, it makes about 4 cups of salad, and the entire package is 430 calories for $3.99.

We really liked this salad kit. Unlike some others we got recently where all the greens were wilting or the lettuce had turned red, the arugula and carrots here were fresh and crunchy, probably because those vegetables themselves are heartier and more durable than some others. The vinaigrette was light and delicious, and it was a good match for the very peppery arugula. (Main flavors/ingredients of the very tasty vinaigrette were sunflower oil, basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, honey, lemon, shallots, dijon mustard, orange, coriander, and a bunch of different types of pepper.) The addition of parmesan cheese also made the salad so much better, and we're not sure we would have liked it quite as much without it.

That said, there were some not-so-great things or things that we thought could have been improved on. The parmesan cheese was good, but we wished there were more! Also, the way that arugula bunches up sometimes when you mix it made it a little more difficult to make sure everything was spread around evenly, and it would have probably been easier if the carrots were grated instead of shaved. The worst though was probably the first time we got the salad kit, when one of the roasted almond pieces I had was hard like wood, and I felt like my teeth cracked after I bit down on it. Very unpleasant, and I was thankful that this wasn't my last piece of almond/last bite of salad, or that would have been a really disappointing end to the meal. So, if you get it, just be careful of the almonds!

Buy again? Yes, we would and we have. Not sure if this is seasonal, but we'll keep getting it as long as they keep selling it!

Week 29 - Emulsification

The Week 29 challenge was announced as emulsification, and although I'd heard the word before, I have to admit that I didn't actually know what it meant in terms of cooking. A quick search for "emulsification recipes" led me to a Fine Cooking article on making emulsion sauces, from which I learned that emulsion sauces included mayonnaise, hollandaise, and vinaigrette, sauces combining two elements that don't really mix with one another, like fat and water, by using a substance like mustard or eggs. Apparently those substances, called emulsifiers, are "made up of big, bulky protein molecules," and that's what helps the sauce hold. I need to learn more about the science of cooking, because it's truly fascinating.

Anyway, once I read the intro there and learned that vinaigrette would qualify for the emulsification challenge, I went looking for a recipe for vinaigrette, which I found on Cookie + Kate. I stuck fairly close to the recipe there, both in terms of ingredients and steps, and it worked out wonderfully. (As a side note, the reason I mentioned that I read the intro only on Fine Cooking is because, as I read it now after the fact, they mention all these tips for keeping an emulsion sauce together, none of which I actually did, like an order of ingredients or adding oil slowly. Luckily, it still worked!)

Ignore the cashew butter... Not part of this, just a crowded counter

The ingredients for our vinaigrette were:

- 1/2 cup olive oil ($0.80)

- 3 tbsp white wine vinegar ($0.21)

- about 1 tbsp dijon mustard ($0.21)

- about 1 tbsp honey ($0.23)

- one spoonful of minced garlic ($0.10)

- a few grinds of salt and black pepper ($0.03)

Coming in at about $1.58, the vinaigrette itself wasn't more expensive than buying salad dressing at the store, and at home, you have the benefit of knowing exactly what's in it and being able to customize it yourself. It made more dressing than we needed for a pretty big salad, so it goes a long way, especially if you dress your salads lighter than we do (we love dressing).

The steps for the recipe I followed were simple. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, and stir it up well with a fork. When I first started stirring, all the ingredients were still really separated, and I had a sinking feeling that I had no idea what I was doing and that it wasn't going to work. But with some time spent vigorously stirring with a fork, the sauce just came together. It was like magic (except actually science). I was amazed that it actually worked, but so happy!

The recipe also gave suggestions for what to do once you tasted the vinaigrette and needed to make adjustments. It tasted a little acidic to me when trying it, so the recommendation was to add more olive oil or honey. I added a little bit of both, and it turned out just right on a second taste.

Usually we'd mix the onions in with the rest of the salad, but it was B's first time having raw red onions and we didn't know if he'd like them. Turned out he loves them as much as we do!

The vinaigrette became the dressing for a salad of grape tomatoes, chickpeas, red onions, and feta cheese, and it was delicious. Light, delicate, but also so flavorful. We ate it alongside Gardein chipotle black bean burgers, and it was a great vegetarian dinner. We liked this vinaigrette so much that I've made it again and even added it to our cookbook!

Captain Daniel Packer Inne

After a relaxing afternoon in the sun and sand at the beach in New London, we decided to take a short drive up to Mystic for dinner. If you're not familiar with Mystic, Connecticut, they're known for their re-created seaport village and maritime museum with buildings that date back centuries. We didn't have time to visit and sightsee on our weekend getaway, and I hadn't been to the seaport for at least a decade before our trip, but I've always had fond memories of Mystic.

We chose the Captain Daniel Packer Inne for dinner, a historic building on the Mystic River that had been built in the 1750s and which had served as a resting place for travelers between New York and Boston. We may not have had time for a full historical exploration at the seaport, but at least we could get a little taste of history by stopping by the inn.

It was crowded when we arrived, and we, of course, had not made reservations because we hadn't actually pre-planned anything for our last minute getaway. That just meant beers at the bar while we waited! What kind of beers did we get? A's Untappd app says he got the Mystic Bridge IPA, but beyond that, we have no real memories about the beer.

We were so hungry once we finally got our table. They brought out some complimentary bread alongside roasted garlic butter, and it was delicious. It wasn't just butter with some roasted garlic mixed into it though. It was better - an entire head of roasted garlic in melted butter - so not only did you get butter for your bread, but you could spread on soft garlic as well. Great start to the meal.

After indulging in our garlicky bread, we shared the portobello mushroom appetizer, which we ordered in part because the menu labeled it as "a Packer Inne original." Whether that means it was on the menu from colonial times or it was the chef's original creation, it was unclear, but the menu described it as a "large portobello cap rubbed with garlic and herb butter, then topped with Alouette cheese and seasoned breadcrumbs, baked golden brown and served with an intensely flavored chive-infused olive oil and balsamic reduction." I put the entire description here verbatim because we don't actually remember anything about the specific flavors five years later except that it was tasty and we liked it. (Really wish we took some notes about this trip...) At least now you'll have some idea what it might have tasted like.

For our entrees, we split two different sandwiches. One was the hot lobster roll, fresh lobster with a sherry butter sauce on a grilled roll. The two main types of lobster rolls are Maine and Connecticut-style, and this one was your classic Connecticut-style lobster roll, warm with butter. It was so rich and buttery, but what else would you expect when you combine lobster and that much butter? The fries on the side were also really good.

The second was the grilled crab and cheese, described on the menu as "fresh seasoned lump crab meat, red onion, fresh avocado, and gruyere cheese grilled on a ciabatta roll with tomato coulis dipping sauce." Unlike the lobster roll which came with regular fries, this one came with sweet potato fries. Between the two, we remember this sandwich being our favorite, but they were both good.

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel and called it a night. Weekend getaways are always so short, and it was time to pack to head home the next day. We wouldn't be headed straight home though. We had plans to take the scenic route home (at least for part of it), to drive down the Connecticut coast sampling even more food and taking some more relaxing walks, so there will be a few more posts in this weekend getaway series!