Week 11 - Pies

I had a bit of trouble figuring out what to do for pie week. I pulled up lots of pie recipes, but I just wasn't really feeling inspired to make any of them. I had already made a version of shepherd's pie earlier in the year, and even though I had both puff pastry and phyllo dough in the freezer, nothing really caught my eye. I put the pie search on hold until one night when I was searching for something else on BBC Good Food, and I came across a recipe for a leek, bacon, and cheese tart. Sure, technically, it was a tart and not a pie, but close enough. It looked like other things that I've seen called pies before, and since I'm not officially participating and the goal is really to just do something new, it was good enough for broadening my horizons.

The ingredients for the tart were:

- olive oil for sautéing

- 3 strips of bacon, chopped

- about a cup or so of chopped leeks

- 1/2 cup or so of grated cheddar cheese

- about 2/3 block of garlic and herb Boursin

- one sheet of puff pastry

It's too much work to figure out how much this all cost, as the puff pastry, Boursin, bacon, and leeks all came out of the freezer and had been there for months, so I'm not going to estimate.

The steps for making the pie/tart were:

1. Over medium heat, heat some olive oil and add the bacon. Fry bacon until mostly cooked and then add the leeks and cook until softened. (Could probably skip the oil and just use bacon fat, but I thought of that after I had already poured the olive oil into the pan.)

2. Grease a baking sheet and unroll the puff pastry on to the sheet. Top with the soft cheese/Boursin, leaving edges empty.

3. Add leeks and bacon mixture, and then top with grated cheddar cheese.

4. Fold over the edges on all four sides. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

This tart was really, really good, although that shouldn't have been a surprise considering how well leeks, bacon, and cheese go together. It was also really simple to make, and confirmed to us that we should buy the frozen puff pastry whenever we can find it at Trader Joe's since they consider it a seasonal item. I would definitely make this again and also experiment with other fillings.

Mackerel in Sunflower Oil

We bought this canned mackerel some time ago, and it's been hanging out in our pantry with other canned fish and assorted pates for months. No idea how much it cost when we got it, but it's $2.99 now. Although we got it a while ago, it was still more than six months out from its best by date when we had it, so still perfectly "fresh" to eat.

M's review: I wasn't sure how much I was going to like this as it looked like there were little bones in it (despite the fact that it said boneless) and mackerel has a tendency to sometimes be fishy. The bones didn't end up being an issue as A determined they were edible, and surprisingly, I didn't find the mackerel fishy at all. The taste was absolutely fine, very mild, but they were a little on the dry side despite soaking in that much oil. That was the only negative in my opinion.

Buy again? I think I would, which is not what I expected. Maybe the dryness was just a fluke.

A's review: I like canned fish. From a young age my mom got me hooked on those canned sardines, and mackerel was right up my alley. Mackerel on the whole is an oily fish and has that "fishy" taste that a lot of people don't like. Somehow, after soaking in sunflower oil, it was less fishy. Also, it was much firmer/drier than I expected with that oil bath. Even so, it was enjoyable and tasty.

Buy again? Yes, assuming it's not too expensive.

Naked Chicken Chalupa

I was reading Grub Street earlier today and they were talking about a new Taco Bell experiment - a taco shell made out of a fried egg debuting this month in Michigan. I can't say that I'm very excited about the idea of holding an oily, squishy egg in taco form, but it reminded me of the last unconventional taco shell that Taco Bell had, the one made out of fried chicken that they sold across the country as the naked chicken chalupa and which was gone within a month.

The naked chicken chalupa came out at the end of January, and within the first week, I picked one up at Taco Bell for lunch and absolutely loved it. I wanted to get more, but there isn't a Taco Bell super close to us at home and our February weekends were pretty packed, making it difficult. Sometime near the end of February, less than a month after releasing it, they announced that the naked chicken chalupa would be gone before March. I had missed the news for a few days (was pretty busy with work and stuff), so by the time I finally learned about it, it was too late. The naked chicken chalupa was gone. I always knew it was going to be a limited edition item, but I didn't think it would be that limited.

There was a lot of buzz around this chalupa when it first came out because it was replacing the regular fried chalupa shell with a shell made of fried chicken. Inside the fried chicken shell were the usual chalupa toppings - lettuce, tomato, cheese, and avocado ranch sauce. Eating it, it was just like eating a regular chalupa. The taste was so similar, except better since the fried chicken shell not only had the flavor of the regular fried chalupa shell but also fried chicken. It was so good. Unfortunately, now it's gone. Was it that expensive to make? Did they run out of fried chicken shells? It got pretty good reviews as far as I could see, and there was a lot of hype about it, so why was it gone so soon? Hopefully this will be like some of the other menu items that Taco Bell brings back from time to time. If so, I will definitely be trying to get as many as I can.

Off to Seattle

We had a Friday evening flight out to Seattle, and after getting to the airport and going through security, we only had a short time to grab some dinner. We were flying JetBlue so we were pretty familiar with the food court options - pizza, Asian food, burgers, sandwiches, salad bar, soups and the like. All generally fine, but nothing fun like Shake Shack or some of the other more interesting options we've found at other airports. 

We took turns picking up dinner, and when I went up to order, many of the lines were long. It seemed easiest and quickest to just pick up some ready-made food from Cibo Express, that generic deli that you can find at lots of airports. None of the sandwiches were that interesting, and they were also all pretty expensive, so I went with chicken noodle soup (although I should have gotten a small instead of a large as it was a ton of soup to drink before getting on a plane and very, very hot) and an assortment of salads from the cold bar. The soup was okay, but didn't have a ton of flavor and probably could have used more chicken stock. From the cold bar, I got a Southwest bean salsa, buffalo chicken pasta salad, pasta salad with chicken and tomatoes, and tuna salad. They were light and refreshing, which was good before getting on a long flight.

When A went up to get his dinner, there was no line at the Boar's Head Deli, so he got a build-your-own sandwich there with focaccia bread, cracked pepper turkey, pepper jack cheese, red onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and spicy deli mustard, which he had them toast. Overall, it was a good sandwich - a good combination of flavors and good ingredients - although A did find it a little over-toasted in parts. I had buyer's remorse after I tasted his sandwich, as it was just so much better than everything I had gotten and not that different in price (about $11 total for each). I knew they made pretty good sandwiches there (since I got that on our way out to San Diego), so I wished I had waited in line for it instead of getting what I got. A's sandwich was even better than the one I got there last time. We decided that, whenever flying JetBlue in the future, we'll probably just get some Boar's Head sandwiches as they do seem like the best quality option, even if a little pricey for a sandwich.

A also got a small cup of the potato cheddar soup from Cibo. It was very creamy and rich, but it wasn't all that cheesy considering the name. You could taste some cheese, but it wasn't a dominant flavor. It had chopped vegetables and potatoes, and was generally a hearty soup. It was warm and comforting, and a perfect complement to the sandwich he got.

On board the flight, we settled in and waited for them to come around with the snack baskets, one of the highlights of the JetBlue experience. I was ready to get my usual Cheez-Its and chocolate chip cookies, but when they let us know the options, there were some changes from our last visit. They now had Rold Gold pretzels as well as cinema style (basically butter flavor) Popcorners (instead of kettle). Fantastic improvements, in our opinion, and we got all of those, including the cookies, over the course of our flight. We arrived in Seattle around midnight, so it was pretty much straight into a taxi to the hotel at that late hour, but it was a pretty good first day (or night) of vacation!

A Pacific Northwest Adventure

We took another short break from blogging, but this time it wasn't from laziness or writer's block. We just got back yesterday from a wonderful week in the Pacific Northwest in Seattle and Vancouver. Not a perfect week, since we encountered record rainfall on one day in Vancouver and there were landslides along our train route causing us unexpected travel stress, but it was a great escape.

We had so much good food out in the Pacific Northwest - lots of local ingredients and fresh seafood, along with fantastic Asian cuisine, especially sushi and Chinese food. Can't wait to share all of it here!

Passaris Nikolaos

We began every morning in Santorini the same way - with pies. On the pedestrian walkway into the heart of Oia, there was a small bakery that we passed by every day, and every day, we got some pies. I think we had read somewhere in our research that the bakery was really good, so we figured that would be a good spot for breakfast, since this was the one hotel on the entire trip where breakfast was not included.

The bakery's name appeared to be Passaris Nikolaos (if I am converting correctly from the Greek letters), and they were certainly popular. We aren't early morning people, no matter what time zone we're in (maybe someday that'll change), and by the time we got to the bakery in the morning (and it was still morning), there was never that much left. We were able to get some pies every day, but there were always some unavailable because of the demand.

One of the pies that we really liked (and I only know this because I see that we have photos of this pie on multiple days) was this special cheese pie. It reminded us a little bit of the one from Ariston in Athens, but that one was a little better, if we remember correctly this many years later.

We got a bunch of different types of cheese pies from the bakery over the few days we were in Santorini, and couldn't tell you at this point the names of the different ones or how they differed, but we definitely liked them for breakfast.

We didn't only get cheese pies though. We tried other pies including some with vegetable fillings. Unfortunately we couldn't tell you which pies we got on which days or any details, and we really wish we had written something down, but we've learned for the future. All we really remember is that we liked the pies.

One of the things we liked a lot about Greece was all the savory pies that you could get as snacks, whether you were in the city or the islands. There were pies everywhere. That's not as easy to do at home, especially for savory snacks, which is part of the reason we treasure the Greek bakery in our neighborhood. We love Greek pies!

Meyer Lemon Pinkberry

A few days after making the Meyer lemon bars, A decided to redeem his free birthday treat at Pinkberry. When we walked in, we saw they had a new seasonal flavor - Meyer lemon. After trying it, he ordered a small Meyer lemon yogurt with mochi, shredded coconut, and cinnamon crumble (which was the recommended topping in their poster).

A's review: I was really happy with my choices for this because I wanted to turn this into something of a Meyer lemon pie. The cinnamon graham cracker crumble and coconut were the base flavors to pair with the Meyer lemon yogurt, and I added the mochi because I like mochi, and they would be a very loose interpretation of the meringue topping. The sweet and tart yogurt worked really well with the unsweetened coconut and cinnamony, sugary crumble. The mochi wasn't really a meringue substitute, but I still liked it just fine.

M's review: I thought the Meyer lemon yogurt itself was really good - sweet, tart, very bright. While I liked the combination that A put together, it was a little on the heavier, sweeter side. I think I probably would have paired the yogurt with raspberries and mochi, but I personally prefer fruit flavors when it comes to yogurt. I really liked the lightness of the yogurt flavor itself and would get it again.

Angkor Cambodian Bistro

NYC doesn't have a ton of Cambodian food, so when we first read a year or so ago about the opening of Angkor Cambodian Bistro on the Upper East Side, we knew we had to try it. It may have taken us longer than we would have liked to get there, but we were so happy that we finally made it.

We started out with two appetizers, the first of which was nem nuong, described as Khmer style barbecue pork hash. We had a similar type of pork preparation in summer rolls at a Vietnamese restaurant in Vegas which we absolutely loved, but here there were six meatballs grilled on skewers and served with a peanut dipping sauce. They were really good, soft, and full of pork and seasoning. The peanut sauce tasted good as well, but it wasn't fully necessary as the meatballs themselves had so much flavor.

The other appetizer we got were the Khmer fish cakes, deep fried cakes filled with fish, shrimp, string beans, and curry powder. These reminded us of tod mun pla, Thai fish cakes, except that compared with all the Thai fish cakes we've had in the past, these had so much more flavor, lots of herbs and spices. The slaw was a small batch of pickled radishes and carrots, and the sauce was a sweet chili sauce. As with the meatballs, the fish cakes were delicious with or without the sauce and slaw, but together the slaw added a freshness and crunch to match the soft fish cakes.

We decided to try some noodles, going with the "famous Cambodia noodle dish" of kuythiew, described as "rice stick noodles sautéed with shrimp, scallion, eggs, dried bean curd, crushed peanuts, and bean sprouts in tamarind sauce." Unlike similar noodle dishes put out by some Thai places, this one had sweetness to it from the tamarind sauce but it wasn't overly sweet which was nice. We've had similar dishes at other Southeast Asian restaurants, but this was an extremely tasty rendition.

The star of the night and the one thing that we knew without a doubt that we were going to order before we walked in the door (unless they were out of it) was the baked amok. Traditionally amok is a fish curry steamed in banana leaves, but the versions they offered here were baked or grilled. The baked seemed to be pretty close to the traditional steaming, and the amok had the mousse-like texture that it is known for. The flavors were amazing, and wrapped inside the creamy fish curry with its red curry sauce and coconut cream were prawns and scallops, as well as what seemed to be basil and kaffir lime. Texturally, we haven't really had anything quite like it and it was so good. It was rich and creamy tasting, and the fish was so soft. The kaffir lime leaves and basil added herbal freshness and a really clean element.

The baked amok came with a small portion of rice on the side (we chose brown) and some vegetables stewed in a similar red curry sauce (okra, zucchini, and ribbons of carrots). This was a really complete meal on its own, and we pondered how we could come here and try new things when we were going to want to get the baked amok every time.

There were some interesting sounding desserts, like a sticky rice and corn pudding or mango sticky rice, but we were so full and so happy with the baked amok that we didn't really even consider dessert. It was a successful first dinner at Angkor, and we would love to go back again sometime soon.

Fior Delle Alpi

The March cheese at Trader Joe's is Fior Delle Alpi, or "Flower of the Alps." A raw milk cheese from the Swiss Alps, Trader Joe's in their post called the flavor "intense" due to the herbs consumed by the cows, as well as rich and bold with "a fairly sweet finish with a smooth, slightly firm texture."

M's review: I didn't like this as much as some of the other recent cheeses, maybe because it was stronger in flavor than those. I, of course, don't have the words to describe in what way it was a stronger flavor, but it was noticeable. The texture was fine, pretty firm, but the taste was not my favorite.

Score: 5/10

A's review: I liked this cheese a lot. As previously noted I don't mind the stinkier cheeses that we've had in the past. This cheese had a bit more funk than the others we've had of late from Trader Joe's, and that was just fine with me. It was also relatively firm, and it was a good overall cheese.

Score: 7.5/10

Red Rice

I have a "problem" where I often go to Costco with the intention of not buying grains (because we have a lot) and then walk out with something that was either a limited time special or on sale. That was the case with these Earthly Choice boxes of rice that we bought back in late 2015 with three different types of rice. We made about 2/3 of this box of red rice for a different dish, so I figured I would finish it off by following the recipe on the back of the box.

The recipe was for red rice with asparagus and goat cheese, and the ingredients (as adapted) were:

- 1 cup red rice ($1? It's been too long to know for sure)

- about 3 oz herb goat cheese ($1.80)

- 1 package of asparagus spears, blanched and sliced ($2.99)

- 2 small onions, chopped ($0.30)

- olive oil ($0.20)

- 2 cups water ($0)

- salt ($0.05)

The rice side cost about $6.34, which we added to some panko chicken tenders, so the total cost of dinner was probably around $10. Not too bad. 

The steps were basically to saute the onions, add rice and toast for a few minutes, and then add salt and water and simmer the rice for 20 minutes (or until water is absorbed). After fluffing the rice, you were supposed to add the goat cheese and the asparagus, gently stirring them in so that the goat cheese stayed in clumps. I tried to do that, but it was pretty much impossible. At some point I just gave up and stirred the whole thing together and all the goat cheese melted.

This recipe was fine, but I'm not sure I need to make it again. It was a good way to use up the rest of the red rice in the box but didn't have a ton of flavor, even after adding more seasoning, other than whatever herbs were in the goat cheese. I'm glad we tried it, but it's not going to get a spot in the rotation.

Mull of Kintyre

Recently we saw what looked to us like a new cheddar cheese at Trader Joe's - Mull of Kintyre Scottish cheddar cheese. From some research, it seems like this used to be part of the Celtic cheddar trio, but now is sold on its own. (Not sure if the trio still exists; we've never bought it and don't remember seeing it.) According to the Fearless Flyer, this cheese is deep, round, and nutty in flavor and firm in body.

M's review: I'm not sure I got deep, round, and nutty from this cheese, but we've already established that I don't really even know what that would mean. I liked this cheese. It had a good firm texture similar to most cheddar cheeses, and a nice flavor that went well with our crackers. Mild but good.

M's rating: 8.5/10

A's review: This was a really tasty cheese. It was firm and had a good, mild flavor to it. As with most cheddar cheese varieties, this was a really good snacking cheese. We paired it with some crackers like always, and they went together perfectly. The only thing I can think of that would have made it better would have been some sliced salami.

A's rating: 8/10

Meyer Lemon Bars

One day while M and I were walking around Trader Joe's, we happened across some bags of Meyer Lemons. I know they're used a lot in baking so I was instantly intrigued by them. M made me promise that if we bought them I had to already have an idea in mind to use them. I didn't, really, but I wanted them anyway. The only thing I knew was lemon bars, so I half-lied and said that I did have an idea.

I ended up deciding to actually make lemon bars so I started doing some research on recipes. I didn't find one that I liked, but I found some recipes from which I liked the separate components. I opted for the following two:

Shortbread base

Lemon topping

For the shortbread, the ingredients are as follows:

• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp salt plus more
• 1 cup (2 sticks) very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 to 2 tsp ice water

You basically just pulse the dry ingredients to mix in a food processor before tossing in the cut up butter and pulsing until it becomes pebbly. The water is there in case the dough looks a little too dry. I didn't end up using any water, but I think I might put a little in if I make this again. The dough didn't seem too dry, but a touch of water might have made it a little easier to work with. I also think I'd put in less salt. Since I use coarse sea salt the flavor tends to be a little more intense so less should be needed.

Line a greased 9x13 baking pan with parchment paper, dump in the dough, and press it out to as close to the same thickness as you can all around while making sure to press it into the edges of the pan as well. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes until it's golden. Once done, remove the pan from the oven and set aside to allow it to cool while you make the topping.

The reason I picked this particular topping portion of the recipe is because the author mentions how the slightly higher sugar content makes it so that the top of the filling crystalizes a bit and gets a nice, sugary coating. Often lemon bars come topped with powdered sugar, and this recipe also does, but the crystalized sugar actually adds the right amount of sweetness in my opinion. The ingredients are as follows:

• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• ⅓ cup fresh squeezed Meyer lemon juice
• 1 heaping tablespoon grated lemon zest
• ½ teaspoon baking powder

I beat together the eggs, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest together with our stand mixer using the whisk attachment. I then mixed in the flour and baking powder and let it go until completely incorporated. Pour the mixed topping over the now-cooled shortbread base. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until the topping has set, and the top looks like it's a harder, crystalized shell.

I ended up accidentally lowering the temperature to 300 because the recipe I used for the shortbread base said to do that for baking on the topping, and I baked it at 300 for 25 minutes before raising the temp back up to 350 and baking for another 5 minutes. I think it turned out well, but we'll see how it goes next time when cooked at the proper temperature the whole time.

After the lemon topping finishes baking remove the pan from the oven and let it cool completely before cutting. As you can see from the picture above, the topping isn't smooth like most lemon bars; it has that aforementioned crystalized finish to it that I thought was absolutely amazing. I ended up cutting them into smaller pieces since I wanted to bring them to the office to share. M and I loved them, but there's no way we should have eaten this whole tray.

In the end, everyone loved these lemon bars. The only things I might change in the future are less salt in the shortbread, a little water in the shortbread, and maybe a little more Meyer lemon juice in the topping for a touch more tartness and freshness. Other than that, these were great. The night I baked them the shortbread was a little hard, but after a night of sitting in the Tupperware they softened up and were easier to bite through. It's a shame that Meyer lemons have such a short season, but I'll definitely be on the lookout for these again in the future, and I might try using regular lemons as well as a test since they're more year-round.

Week 10 - Middle East

For the Middle East challenge, I made a three part meal. The first recipe I had stumbled on was from Saveur for makhlama lahm, Iraqi eggs with lamb and tomatoes. That sounded like it would be good over rice, so I searched Iraqi rice on Google and found a recipe for timman. Finally, to round it out, I was intrigued by a recipe for quinoa salad from a falafel restaurant upstate, so that sounded like the perfect side dish. All of these would, of course, be adapted for what we had/could find in our shopping.

Iraqi Eggs with Meat Sauce

The biggest difference between our version of this and the original recipe is that I substituted ground turkey for the lamb since I try not to cook red meat at home. The recipe also referred to "bahar asfar," yellow curry powder, and since I couldn't find any packages with that name (even at Kalustyan's!), I'm not sure if the curry powder we used had everything in it that was intended.

The ingredients we used were:

- olive oil ($0.20)
- 1 lb of ground turkey ($4.30)
- 1 onion, finely chopped ($0.50)
- 1/2 batch of parsley, finely chopped ($0.90)
- 2 vine ripened tomatoes, roughly chopped ($1.15)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)
- a few tsp of curry powder ($0.75)
- 4 eggs ($0.40)

The steps for making this portion of dinner were:

1. Heat olive oil in large skillet and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Add ground turkey and cook until browned, breaking up the meat as it cooks.

2. Add onion and cook until soft.

3. Add tomatoes, half of the chopped parsley, curry powder, salt and pepper, and cook until tomatoes are soft. Season to taste.

4. Grease baking pan and move turkey mixture to baking pan. Create 4 wells in the pan and drop each egg into a well. Cook until eggs are set. (Recipe suggested 7 minutes, but they weren't quite done yet. We let them go too long after that though, so I'm not sure of the exact right time to get them to be soft baked.)

5. Garnish with remaining parsley.

This tasted really healthy and after having it, I thought that we probably didn't need the rice as it wasn't really greasy or full of liquid that a starch would need to soak up. It was fine with the eggs (although probably better if we hadn't baked it as long), but I think the turkey mixture on its own, maybe with more curry powder, would be good on top of rice as a complete meal, maybe also with some more vegetables mixed in. I'll have to try that soon.

Quinoa Salad

We stuck a little more closely to the recipe on this one, other than increasing the amounts of fresh vegetables and using canned chickpeas. There was only so much space on the stove and only so much time to make dinner (which still took the two of us two hours doing it together).

The ingredients for our version of the quinoa salad were:

- 1 cup of quinoa ($1.33)
- 2 vine ripened tomatoes, chopped ($1.14)
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped ($0.99)
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped ($0.89)
- 1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed ($0.75)
- 5 green onions, chopped ($0.65)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)
- about 3 tsp sumac ($0.50)
- 1/4 cup lemon juice (about 3 small lemons) ($0.64)
- 1/2 cup olive oil ($0.75)

The process for making the salad was pretty easy. The steps were:

1. Prepare quinoa according to package instructions.

2. Move quinoa to large bowl to cool. Add tomatoes, green pepper, red pepper, chickpeas, and green onions. Mix well together.

3. In separate bowl, mix the dressing - salt, pepper, sumac, lemon juice, olive oil.

4. Mix dressing into salad and season to taste.

This was probably my favorite part of dinner. It was so fresh and healthy, and the dressing was great with all that sumac and freshly squeezed lemon juice. I could definitely see us making this again. It was pretty simple to make and would have been even easier if we hadn't been doing so many other things at the same time.

Timman

This was really just basmati rice cooked in chicken stock, but I wanted to try following the original recipe here for the different method of preparing the rice. I was wondering if it would indeed produce different results from just cooking the rice according to the package instructions. I was originally going to leave out the pine nuts and probably could have, as they didn't add that much.

The method of making this rice was to heat some olive oil and butter in the pot, add the rice and stir it around for a few minutes over high heat, and then add a few cups of chicken stock (1:3 rice to stock ratio). The rice was then cooked over medium low, simmering for 15 minutes covered tightly. After fluffing the rice after those 15 minutes, we turned off the burner and just let the pot of rice sit near where the heat escapes the oven (since it was already on for the eggs). At this point, you're supposed to put paper towels over the top and around the rim of the pot, and then re-cover it tightly for at least 25 more minutes.

We had never really tried making the rice using this "towel method" before, but I imagined that it was supposed to result in fluffier, softer rice. It did, although I didn't think it was dramatically different from making the rice our regular way and skipping that step. It does seem to be a good thing to do though if you're making a bunch of other dishes and aren't sure how long the rice is going to be sitting around waiting, as it keeps the texture nice and fluffy.

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, this was a tasty, healthy Middle Eastern meal, although we ate way too much of it late at night. The cost for the entire meal was about $16.94, which seems like a lot, but there was some salad leftover, as well as a bowl of rice with turkey topping for lunch. I was really glad that I had A's help to make this or otherwise it might have taken another hour as I went back and forth from recipe to recipe. It was a bit ambitious as far as amount of work for a Monday night, and I think if we were to incorporate any of these into our rotation, it would be the quinoa salad or the turkey skillet - separately.

Week 9 - One Pot

One pot was the challenge theme for one of the first challenge weeks I ever did back in 2014, so I wasn't sure what to make for the one pot theme this time around. While I was trying to figure it out, I unintentionally made a one pot meal, so task complete.

Since this was unplanned, unfortunately no ingredients photo, but I had originally been making a soup with Italian sausage and vegetables. I added some tiny pasta to it but it didn't seem like enough, so I added more tiny pasta. By the time the pasta finished absorbing all the water, it had pretty much become a one pot pasta dish. It looks a little like stew in these photos but it was really thick and there wasn't really much liquid in the end at all.

The dish combined a large onion, a pound of carrots, a box of mushrooms, one large zucchini, one package of Trader Joe's spicy Italian sausage (the pre-cooked ones), about 8 cups of water, 2 large scoops of chicken bouillon, salt and pepper, a lot of dried oregano, a few shakes of chili flakes, some dried rosemary, about 2 cups of tiny pasta, and a little bit of chopped parsley added at the end. I basically simmered it until the pasta had absorbed all the water, and A said it had a consistency like porridge. We have made this soup before and usually mix in some lentils or rice or some other grain, but this is the first time it turned into a one pot non-soup meal. Good combination in whatever form.