What We’ve Cooked Lately

I thought it was time to round-up some of the dishes that we’ve been cooking lately.  A few months ago, I took over the weekly meal planning and grocery shopping duties.  Todd still does the majority of the actual cooking at the stove, but I plan, shop, and prep the meals before he comes home from work.  I may do a blog post about the tools and my method of weekly meal planning, if you guys seem interested.

One of my goals in life is to learn to cook some authentic Chinese dishes similar to what my mom used to make for us.  Todd and I attempted the Pork & Chive Dumplings.  We didn’t make the wrappers from scratch, we just used frozen ones from the supermarket.  But we made the pork & chive filling from scratch, and the chili oil from scratch. 

We thought it was very good!  But we’re going to try a few more different recipes and then pick our favorite.

We saw the episode of Milk Street where they went to Taiwan to eat street market food.  One of my favorite fond memories of childhood in Taiwan was the grilled corn from the street vendors, so we had to try to make this Taiwanese Grilled Corn!  It was also very good, but no exactly like my childhood favorite, so the search continues!

The 3rd classic Chinese dish we made was Mapo Tofu from Woks of Life.  It did turn out yummy, but I think I bought pork that was too lean.  Next time I’ll try with a fattier ground pork.

We made homemade from scratch pizza at home!  We did purchase a pizza stone and a pizza peel for getting pizzas in and out of the oven.  We used the America’s Test Kitchen One Hour Pizza dough recipe.  We made two pizzas, one for me and one for Todd.  The crust was chewy and crunchy, delicious!

I started perusing the site Eating Well and found a salmon recipe that we tried and LOVED!  It really was so tasty!  It was this Roasted Salmon with Smokey Chickpeas & Greens.  Definitely 5 stars and will be making it again!

Another Milk Street recipe we made was Sichuan Chicken Salad.  It was good too!

A couple more salad-y dishes we enjoyed… Speedy Beet and Bean Salad with Herb Vinaigrette, except we added rotisserie chicken too. 

Farro Salad with Asparagus, Sugar Snap Peas, and Tomatos

A very flavorful chicken dish that we made for Todd’s family when we visited in August… White Balsamic and Terragon Chicken.  Here we separated the chicken and the sauce.

An absolute favorite that we’ve made several times recently is Chicken Curry in a Hurry with Basmati.  It is SO GOOD and it’s easy, you make it with rotisserie chicken.  You can buy ready to heat naan bread at grocery stores.  Also, you MUST get the mango chutney because it really turns this dish from good to GREAT!

Another Indian inspired dish we tried was Punjabi Aloo Gobi.  We didn’t super enjoy this one, mainly because of the very strong flavor of the hing.  If you try it, let me know what you think!

These Beef Kofta Meatballs with Roasted Vegetables was absolutely delicious!  I love Middle Eastern beef kofta at restaurants!  I could NOT believe that we could make such similar beef kofta meatballs at home, I was so excited when we tried it!  It was great!

Another Woks of Life dish we tried was Red Curry Noodles with Chicken.  We liked it!  Ours didn’t look very red.  It was very easy.

Seared Tofu with Sweet Chili Sauce and Broccoli – very healthy dish

America’s Test Kitchen’s Chicken and Dumplings is SO good!  To save time, we used rotisserie chicken.  You would need to add more fat (such as butter) to duplicate the taste if using rotisserie chicken.

One of the first things I learned to make in the pressure cooker (Instant Pot) was Tex Mex Chili Mac, and we still love it!  It is from the America’s Test Kitchen Pressure Cooker book, but this one seems similar except we use ground beef.

A recent favorite is this Orecchiette with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe from Skinnytaste.  Yum!

Last but not least, I’ve fallen in love with steel cut oats again, now that I’ve learned to make it in the Instant Pot!  So fast, and so yummy!  I put fruits, pecans, and honey in it.  I make 2 cups, which is good for 8-9 breakfast servings!  Just keep in a glasslock container in fridge and eat it the whole week.  Add some milk and heat up.

Well, that was a lot of recipes thrown at ya.  Cooking good food at home is one of our enjoyments, so we do it on average 4 dinners per week.  See ya next time!  If you try any of the recipes, I’d love to know what you think!