NO CHOP. This is how we dinner. No fresh, no chop, no effort, just massive flavor with pantry staples that we know and love.
With Cinco de Mayo on a Sunday this year, I'm definitely not going to be drinking/eating tacos all day and night. I'll be doing laundry and packing lunches and I'm completely fine with that, you know? This, to me, is a perfect Sunday meal. Cozy and comforting but still light, and full of flavor.
...Crispy Korean chicken with a super delicious sweet soy sauce! These easy rice bowls are the perfect kid-friendly weeknight meal.
Today! Another (not planned this way) bowl inspired by one of my favorite bloggers - this time Jessica @ How Sweet Eats. I got her new cookbook around Christmastime last year, and have loved so many recipes that I've tried so far. The one that I've made over and over and over and OVER again is the Korean Beef Bowls. They are SO good, but since we tend to not eat a ton of beef I wanted to try a chicken version instead.
If anything, the chicken version is better than the original. That's because of the cooking method. The chicken gets sliced before cooking, then tossed in flour and verrrrry gently fried quickly in some not-too-hot oil. The chicken gets golden brown, we toss it with a super simple Korean-inspired sauce. Done!
...MEAL PREP THIS FOR SURE.
Alternative Title: The Time Beck Discovered Chow Mein Noodles and Now That's All She Wants To Eat.
And honestly, who can blame her? This spicy peanut chopped salad is one of my favorite things to do with the Spicy Peanut Sauce I posted on Monday. We use it in hot and cold dishes which allows it to taste super different aka behave like two sauces aka two for one aka measure twice cut once? I don't know.
I posted on Monday. We use it in hot and cold dishes which allows it to taste super different aka behave like two sauces aka two for one aka measure twice cut once? I don't know.
...It is three and a half weeks until Cinco de Mayo. And, in very inappropriate cultural appropriation, I'm super into this holiday for zero reason besides I REALLY like Mexican food. Like, top three flavor profiles for sure. Indian food ranks too.
It's also, of course (not to most people, I know), Master's week, and snacks for this weekend are an absolute must. This pepita salsa is gluten free and vegan (if you eat honey or use agave) so can appeal to a ton of people, but has huge flavor and SPICE because we use a whole jalapeno, we don't take the seeds out, and we live for it, JVN style.
...Oh, hey.
Here is a nicoise salad that is full of texture and interest, can be meal prepped or served warm/room temperature, includes veggies and carbs and protein, and has a to-die-for flavor base. So that checks a lot of boxes.
Salads-as-boring is kind of a tired old story, but maybe a truthful one nonetheless. I'm always looking for salads with lots of STUFF on them. One of my favorite things to order at delis is a salad sampler kind of thing, and nicoise salads are that way naturally.
I've seen lots of versions of nicoise salads - some with rice instead of potatoes, fresh tuna instead of canned, and lots of have olives and eggs. I don't like eggs and Jay doesn't like olives, so you understand why those two items are missing here.
The KEY to this salad is that we make one mustard base, then use it in different ways in the tuna, green beans, potatoes, AND salad dressing. This takes some steps out of the dish since we don't have to make all separate sauces, and each component tastes slightly different while also belonging together from the mustard.
...Happy birthday to me!
I'm 33 today. I had a lovely celebration with my family last weekend, and this week has been positively BRUTAL with sick kids and house showings and work and honestly all of our knees are really sore. That's not to say I'm not in a birthday mood, I am.
I'm just in a kale birthday mood. Don't really have time to stop and have a gazillion calories of sugar that will make me feel crappy in two hours. Need vegetables to avoid eating french fries aka my feelings at every turn. It's a very 33 birthday mood, for sure.
...I'm SUPER into curry.
When I was in high school in Tokyo there was a chain of Indian restaurants called Samrat. They had a lunch special that high schoolers could afford, and it was SUCH a treat to be able to go there and try some curries with rice and naan. It was the first time I had much experience with curry outside of curry chicken salad or similar southern foods, and one of my favorite memories of high school - of all things to fixate on in Japan.
Now, one million years later, I spend some weekends making curries with tons of spices, simmered for hours that stink up the house in the best possible way. Or I make this: a chicken curry with just seven ingredients that comes together in under an hour - way less if you happen to have leftover shredded chicken on hand.
Curry in under an hour is mainly my jam with two kids and a bunch of jobs and dogs that eat through walls. Slow-simmering things aren't as common in my kitchen as I'd like them to be, unfortunately.
...WITH BROCCOLINI IT'S SO HEALTHY.
Ok I will not shout anymore. But, seriously. These salads? NOT the TGIFriday's sadclownface Caesars with goopy dressing that I ate in high school "for something light." Ugh. If I do nothing in life, it will be to teach Beck just how to eat like a person for how she feels, and disregard any internal or external pressure to look a certain way. I have been SO anxious about this recently, the fear that she'll hate her body and spend her whole life trying to make it look different the way, well, everyone I know does.
But this isn't about that. This is about the way I love to eat salads! Requirements are: flavor, protein, and enough ingredients that I'm not .... eating a bowl of greens. Although I have a salad coming soon that is basically a bowl of greens, so ignore everything I say.
This Lemon Thyme Shrimp Caesar Salad is SO good, and definitely feels like real cooking, which I like (rather than opening a bag of salad greens and throwing on some dressing that has definitely been in the fridge for multiple moves but it's not bad so we keep moving it). We roast tomatoes and broccolini, sear shrimp, toast croutons, and shake up a super rustic Caesar dressing with tons of lemon and fresh thyme. The whole thing together is really perfect, balanced, and feel-good without being sad-healthy, my least kind of healthy food.
...I have sprouts on the brain, apparently.
If you follow along on Instagram you'll know that one of my most recent posts was these Parmesan Brussels that rock my world and make for a really yummy weeknight side dish. You also might remember that last year we made Momofuku's Brussels with Fish Sauce Vinaigrette at the recommendation of my friend Emily, which was one of my favorite recipes of the entire year.
So "one of my favorite," in fact, that I decided to turn them into a full meal because the vinaigrette is just so delicious. It has a fish sauce base (I use this one because I see it everywhere but people also like the Red Boat brand), which is admittedly funky, but really delicious once the sauce comes together, and not fishy at all. The punchy tangy/sweet/umami flavor of the vinaigrette soaks into the crispy tofu and Brussels, and all is right with the world.
...Oh, early week dinners. They can sometimes feel sad. Maybe we're trying to do better by our bodies after a weekend, maybe we're hurried with work and activities and life, maybe we're just out of inspiration and tired.
Easiest ever eggplant parm to the rescue! Marinara + cheese is a pretty universally loved combination, and I make versions of this all the time: throw random veggies in with marinara and cheese, top with something crunchy, bake until tender, done.
This version with eggplant ends up almost creamy when the eggplant softens because we slice it with a mandoline. If you don't have one just slice the eggplant as thinly as you can - or buy a new kitchen tool, you'll use it a ton once you have one!
...Because we aren't celebrating Valentine's Day, but we aren't NOT celebrating it either, right? Here's our in-case-you-need-a-fancy-meal solution.
I've been making this sea bass for over a year now, and it is hands down one of my feels-like-a-restaurant meals that we make at home. Sea bass is definitely expensive so this is a real treat, but the veggies we have on the side are simple, affordable, and treated so well that they are just as much the star of the show as the fish. This is something I always say about restaurants - if the vegetables are good, everything else will be spectacular. We had a particularly expensive meal last night that featured steamed unsalted zucchini, and we were NOT impressed.
We need to be kind to our veggies because they're pretty kind to us, you know? So, with that, I give you Seared Sea Bass + Meyer Lemon Crumbs with Curried Carrot Puree and Garlic Spinach.
...One of my favorite recipes with sweet potato gnocchi from Trader Joes (or wherever)! This super quick dinner recipe is perfect for any greens + gnocchi you have and comes together in just 20 minutes or so. Butter, sage, and garlic make a quick sauce, and dinner is on the table ready to be eaten in half an hour!
Obviously healthy enough for what we're trying to do this January.
One thing I've been trying really hard to do since having Will is find a balance between 1. complicated meals that I love to make but take forever and trash the kitchen and 2. takeout. I know that seems dumb, but I'm never the one to look for "super quick and easy weeknight meals!" I don't mind eating at 9pm, I love cooking, and it mostly works for me.
Until, of course, it doesn't. Will has been taking a longer stretch of sleep (like...two hours, don't get too excited) in the late evenings, so if we eat at nine and go to bed around 11pm I'm missing a lot of that good sleep. Then homeboy wakes up sometimes every hour at night, I'm exhausted and forgetful and irritable and honestly the fun crazy dinners are mostly not worth that.
So the quest is to find quick and easy dinners that are actually GOOD, and this is definitely that. It's sweet potato gnocchi (I love the sweet potato gnocchi from Trader Joe's!) that boils in four minutes, during which time we saute some spinach with so.much.garlic. aka my favorite way to eat spinach. Then the gnocchi gets a brown butter + sage bath because we've earned it, and dinner is ready in FIFTEEN MINUTES, tastes like something from a fancy restaurant. You need this in your life, trust me.
...Oh good, the first Monday after Christmas break and there's a big football game tonight and honestly WHY ARE WE EVEN HERE?
I know it's not this way everywhere, but people around here are pretty dang excited for the National Championship tonight. I don't give a hoot, but Jay and I both went to Clemson and our neighbors are Alabama fans BUT we are adults so they're coming over for Korean beef bowls made with fake beef.
Naturally.
And in case you need some fun-but-healthy food to keep your resolutions in check tonight or for any upcoming snacky events, I give you this: buffalo chicken lettuce wraps, seasoned with ranch flavors, super flavorful and spicy, with minimal-but-necessary butter to keep everything together. I use ground chicken to make things go quickly, so less than 30 minutes to your new favorite bar food!
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This super easy roasted pork loin is completely fool proof and has a garlic and herb butter crust that makes the most delicious pan drippings. Try this for a holiday dinner or medium-fancy weekend dinner idea!
Here's our 2018 Holiday Meal!
No but seriously. I'm going to make this roasted pork loin once a week until February.
How was your weekend? Our was....well, let's just say that I'm really excited for the holidays but also am feeling the exhaustion and the feelings and the busy-ness and WHY ARE YOU PUKING ON ME AGAIN, BABY, in a very hard way. The week before Christmas feels like packing for vacation to me...once we get it done and onto the main event everything will be fiiiiiine.
...Today! I want to start planning our Christmas menu because we have less than two weeks to go, AND start thinking of some items that would be good to have kind of...around...for snacking and random meals and something to prevent eating sugar cookies for breakfast. 
Instead, breakfast cookies! And Beck in her jammies. Makes sense. 
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What do you do for your Thanksgiving re: green things or health considerations? 
Some people are all balance every day and some are more just casseroles is fine, thanks. We fall somewhere in the middle with a lot of "we do this every year" and me trying to shove new things into the mix. One thing that is normal for us is that my dad always does a "plain" green veg. Something free of bacon or cheese or condensed xx of yy soup, and it works so well with some of the heavier flavors we have on Thanksgiving.
This is that! A super simple, mostly pure veg. Lemon juice and olive oil and salt go so well with asparagus, and you can broil this right at the end of your meal prep right after you carve the turkey - seriously last minute stuff, even after the casseroles are reheated. The result is a charred lemon flavor that adds a ton to the asparagus without overpowering it, and the health benefits of, you know, anything green.
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Continuing our Thanksgiving prep! Enter...a newish way to eat veggies with lots of butter in them. I like carrots in almost all forms, but they can definitely feel like an afterthought or boring vegetable. We roast them at home a ton with olive oil, salt, and dried dill - that's probably my favorite way to eat them. 
My family never did carrots at holidays, but I think the boiled-in-sugar version is common, or at least was in the 80's, in many families. I think carrots (I always picture them at cafeterias like this) boiled in butter and sugar are delicious, and that was kind of the impetus for this recipe. We boil the carrots in stock, butter, and spices, then broil them with some coarse sugar for a fake brulee effect. The end result is tender, flavorful, and so warming from the spices.
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The best Thanksgiving alternative, I love just cooking a roasted turkey breast bone in for perfect Thanksgiving nostalgia in about half the time. This recipe includes my favorite easy homemade gravy recipe that comes out perfectly every time. Roast turkey breast is the best!
HAPPY NOVEMBER. How. Is. It. Here.
Since Thanksgiving is just three weeks away (how.is.it.here.), we have to start prepping our menu ASAP! Our plans are pretty up in the air this year due to newborn status (basically, if anyone has so much as a sniffle we aren't going), but our tentative plan is to have a day with Jay's family and a day with mine and the rest of the weekend for Jay to parent HARD because he has to travel for work the following Monday. At five seconds postpartum, almost identical to when Beck was born.
Luckily I'm super tough and not ever overwhelmed or weepy so I'll be fiiiine. Translation: Beck loves movies and we have lots of family in town.
...This is of many things currently in my freezer that I'm trying SUPER hard to not eat until after the baby is born, easier said than done. I've been trying to make a thing or two each week to put in the freezer before the baby is born. Mostly I've done sauces to use in quick meals, I froze a bit of slow cooker pork for tacos, and some oatmeal-heavy breakfast-meets-dessert stuff is high on the list for the sake of not just eating a half loaf of bread each morning AND because oatmeal is supposed to be great for lactation but I don't usually run for bowls of straight oatmeal so. Cookies instead! 
This particular inspiration came from the fact that I had some frozen blueberries leftover from my sister's inlaw's yard this summer (riddle me that). Part of all this freezer cooking is that we are using up stuff that was already languishing, so I used something from the freezer to make something for the freezer, which is pretty much like saving for retirement, right? Tres meta.
This recipe came straight from Sally's Baking Addiction, and I doubled it and added chocolate chips because chocolate is probably definitely important for lactation.
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I've started joking with my family when they're like mmmm love those potatoes, and I'm all, you mean the butter with a little potato? Yeah, it's local. 
I use local butter and buy it in two pound logs and that makes it healthy, and environmentally friendly, and community-conscious, and an all-around good choice. Showing you this recipe is doubly relevant today because we watched the "Fat" episode of Salt Fat Acid Heat last night and HOLY COW HOW INSPIRING. The show itself is phenom, the setting is gorgeous, we learned a ton (I think I safely speak for Jay when I say that we, as a couple, like learning about food in all the ways all the time), and I came away with about ten new ideas for holiday cooking specifically. Highly recommend you watch it this week all the way through so we can discuss.
So, given the fat theme, it makes perfect sense that we roast our cauliflower in butter. Good butter, enough butter so that you know it's there, butter butter butter. The concept here is super easy: some raw ingredients (literally salt, fat, acid) in and on a whole cauliflower, some liquid and cherry tomatoes to bring everything together, roasty toasty, and fresh herbs to finish. We served this a few weeks ago with some chicken and veggies, but honestly I could eat half of this cauliflower with a hunk of bread and call it dinner. I use chicken stock here because we aren't vegetarian, but veggie stock would be wonderful for a truly vegetarian option.
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