Bad Food Blog

Tag: side dish

• My Menu Plan – July 2020

  Posted at 11:28 pm by Rachel, on July 3, 2020

  I’m back with another month-long menu plan! Actually, I will share my June plan at the end of this post also. WordPress changed their post editor recently, and my pregnant brain was too tired to deal with that last month. 😂  And it is actually pretty intuitive, so clearly I was EXTRA tired last month.

  It’s Fourth of July weekend here in the US, and of course we are celebrating with a bunch of food. I’ve made this American flag pie for the last few years, and actually just baked one over Memorial Day weekend. It is so beautiful, but it has always turned out very juicy for me. I’m going to try NOT refrigerating the berries with the cornstarch this time – I am thinking that it makes the juices solidify too much and they sneak into the pie. We will see! If you are interested in a much quicker and easier dessert, strawberry shortcake (or chocolate strawberry shortcake!) is a delicious and classic option.

  Once again, the menus are printable – if you want to print this menu plan, you can just click on the image below and it will open the full-sized image in a new tab, scaled to print on a standard piece of printer paper.

  

  Salads

  Salads are easy meals to adapt for your kids. Mine don’t usually like things mixed up, so we just put little bit of everything onto their plates separately, either without dressing or with dressing on the side so they can dunk and dip.

  • Sesame Chicken Salad from Meals Made Easy
  • Panzanella and sausages from You Have It Made 
  • Southwest salad – Not really planning to follow a recipe for this one, we will see what happens. As long as there is avocado I’ll be okay.
  • Chicken and peach salad from Easy, Delicious Meals – This was a hit last month, and probably took 20 minutes to carve the chicken and dice the peaches. I subbed in feta for blue cheese and used lots of peaches.

  Pasta

  • Pasta with blistered cherry tomatoes – One of my favorite weeknight pastas
  • Creamy pesto tortellini with green beans and ricotta (adapted from Easy, Delicious Meals) – The original recipe calls for gnocchi, and it is amazing if you have access to fresh gnocchi (or you feel inspired to make your own!). But I don’t have fresh gnocchi right now, so I’m subbing in tortellini.
  • Spaghetti and meatballs – I make this sauce with these meatballs in my 7.25 quart Dutch oven. Basically, I start the sauce, then start the meatballs, and pop them into the pot after I broil them. I use all of the meat to make meatballs, instead of using some to make the sauce a meat sauce (doing this yields me about 32 meatballs instead of 16). It is time consuming but oh so good. My husband will be helping me with these one weekend, and I will likely freeze most of the leftovers to start preparing for baby #4.
  • Eggplant parmesan with pasta from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone – This is my third month in a row making this recipe! I took a little short cut last week and used a high quality jarred sauce, and warmed it with the basil in the microwave. It’s my current comfort food of choice.

  Vegetarian

  • Veggie stir fry – My kids don’t actually mind the sauce on this stir fry, and they go nuts for the baby corn and sesame seed “sprinkles.”
  • Polenta with roasted vegetables and pesto (inspired by this recipe) – I make some basic polenta with parmesan, roast a couple of sheet pans worth of vegetables, layer it on a plate, and top it all off with pesto from the store.
  • Black Bean Veggie Burgers from You Have It Made – These burgers have beans and beets and can be made ahead! Fingers crossed at finding beets in Hawaii in July!
  • Sweet potato and black bean tacos – I’ve never had these before but I am a sucker for sweet potatoes. I’ll still be chopping up some peppers and tomatoes for the kids though.

  Eggs

  We’ve been alternating scrambled eggs and eggs-in-a-basket lately; it’s been a nice change of pace!

  Pizza

  I’m back to making pizza – this is the crust recipe I typically use and this is the sauce.

  Meat

  • Hamburgers, served with watermelon with mint, lime, & feta from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone – This watermelon salad takes like 10 minutes to throw together and is amazing! Easy enough for a regular side dish, fancy enough to pull out and impress guests. It reminded me of the watermelon salad we ate at Frog Hollow Tavern a couple years ago.
  • Huli huli chicken from The Complete Slow Cooker
  • Grilled chicken, served with Tomato Cobbler with Cornmeal-Cheddar Biscuits – This is one of those “plan the main dish around the side dish” meals. I was remembering the tomato cobbler recipe, which I haven’t made for years now, and I knew I had to make it again this month. Check out the cook time before you start – it is definitely a weekend recipe!
  • Whole chicken in the slow cooker – I’ll be saving some extra meat and the bones to make chicken soup for my freezer.

  And the “bonus” June menu:

  

  Happy eating!

  Posted in Menu Plans | 0 Comments | Tagged burgers, chicken, Dinner, kid-friendly, Menu plan, pasta, pie, pizza, salad, side dish, vegetarian

• Freezer Cooking for Baby #3 and My Postpartum Menu Plan (Part 4)

  Posted at 2:00 pm by Rachel, on March 15, 2019

  This is the last part of a four post series on filling your freezer before adding a new baby to the family. Revisit Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

  Well we have made it to the last post in my series, and this one is about all of the “extras.” Side dishes, breakfasts, and desserts may not cross your mind when you start planning a freezer menu but oh, they should!

  A lot of these foods are quick to get going. I made many of them, such as rice, quinoa, breads, and pancakes, while I was waiting on a main dish to cook. Use what may otherwise be dead time to get stuff done!

  Side Dishes

  

  • Cornbread (double batch, wrapped in foil)

  Breads freeze very well. I’ve been freezing the cornbread from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything since 2014 and it has never failed me!

  • Sweet Potato Casserole (single recipe, 2 8×8 foil pans)

  Let me start by saying that while this froze well, I would tweak this recipe more if I made it again because I found it to be sweeter than I generally care to eat for dinner. I froze mine without the topping because I was afraid it would get mushy when it defrosted. The first time we ate it, I did a half batch of the topping (since the pan was half the original recipe) and it was way too sweet. The second time, I halved the sugar and it was a lot better. Both times the topping was pretty scant – I guess that’s what happens with a “lighter” recipe.

  • Buttermilk Loaf (double recipe, wrapped in plastic wrap and foil)

  Wow that was good! I just made the basic recipe, but this was so tender and delicious, even after freezing, that I feel like I need to try all of the variations. Overall this was very easy to make and very easy to double so long as you have two loaf pans.

  • Mashed White Beans (quadruple recipe, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)

  I always double this recipe when I make it because it is never enough. I did the quadruple batch this time to get it all cooked at once, but I think next time I will do two double batches. There was just so much liquid and reducing it took a very long time. They do freeze very well.

  • Rice (multiple batches, 4 gallon-sized freezer bags)

  I had heard about freezing rice before but this is the first time I actually tried it. I watched the rice closely and turned off the heat when there was still the slightest bit of moisture in the pot so that it wouldn’t be dry after reheating.

  • Quinoa (multiple batches, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)

  Reading that rice freezes well inspired me to freeze some quinoa too. I made mine with chicken broth and – just like with the rice – watched carefully to make sure it did not dry out. This came out so well; it did not taste like it had been frozen.

   

  Other Stuff

  

  • Buttermilk Pancakes and Pumpkin Pancakes (store in gallon-sized freezer bags)

  These are great for a quick breakfast. My kids love when I make pancakes, and sticking them in the freezer makes this a doable breakfast any day of the week. It actually took me a few times to get as many pancakes into the freezer as I wanted to because my kids and husband kept eating them! 😄 I prefer using buttermilk in my pancakes, especially for freezer pancakes, because the texture is far and away superior. To freeze pancakes, cook as normal, cool completely, and store in a large freezer bag.

  • Breakfast Burritos (single recipe, gallon-sized freezer bags)

  This is my husband’s favorite breakfast item for the freezer. I love having a savory fast breakfast option in the mix, especially in the early nursing-around-the-clock days. We make them with bacon instead of ham.

  • Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins (3 or 4 dozen, gallon-sized freezer bags)

  I am not one to say no to chocolate for breakfast. I honestly do not remember how many banana muffins ended up in my freezer as I made more than one double batch, and I know I have made more since the baby was born. I do know that they freeze like a dream. I use the banana bread recipe from How to Cook Everything – one loaf pan translates to one dozen muffins.

  

  

  • Pumpkin Muffins (double recipe, gallon-sized freezer bags)

  Sometimes I do half whole wheat flour so I can feel a little better about my breakfast (I also make them without the icing). My kids ate these faster than anything else we put in the freezer, and I have actually made them several times since the baby was born because my big kids love them so much.

  

  • Brownies (store in gallon-sized freezer bags)

  New moms like chocolate, or at least this one does, so these were a must-have on my cook list. After baking the brownies, let them cool and cut them into squares. Freeze them in a gallon-sized freezer bag. We generally microwaved these and ate them warm, but the fudgey interior pieces are pretty delicious straight from the freezer.

  • Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (double recipe, 5 dozen dough balls)

  This was my first time freezing cookie dough. We are a big sweets family, and warm cookies are my husband’s favorite dessert, so it was bound to happen sometime. It was so easy! I’ve been suggesting it to everyone I know! Mix the cookie dough and shape it into balls as usual, then flash freeze on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet for one hour. Once the dough is frozen, transfer to a gallon-sized freezer bag. You don’t defrost the dough before baking – put it into the oven straight from the freezer, just add a minute or two to the normal bake time.

  Finally, if you are still looking for something else to stick in your freezer, here are a few things that I planned to make but I ran out of time and energy before I got there:

  • Veggie Packed Freezer Ready Breakfast Sandwiches
  • Blueberry muffins
  • Pumpkin pie and apple pie
  • Hearty Black Bean Quesadillas (for lunch/snacks)
  • Easy Calzones (for lunch/snacks… I like the pepperoni ones)

  This concludes my series on freezer cooking for a new baby. What are your favorite freezer foods? Tell me in the comments!

  Posted in Menu Plans | 0 Comments | Tagged breakfast, dessert, freezer friendly, kid-friendly, Menu plan, side dish

• My February Menu Plan

  Posted at 4:03 am by Rachel, on January 26, 2019

  We have finally eaten most of the contents of our freezer and I am back with a monthly menu plan to share! I have really missed menu planning so I am excited to get back into the swing of things. Scroll down for recipe links and details on what I’m cooking this month.

  

  Eggs

  I would like to make a souffle again this month; I am specifically eyeing the Winter Squash Souffle from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. However, most egg nights we will be sticking to our traditional (easy) scrambled eggs and roasted veggies.

  Slow Cooker

  • Huli Huli Chicken – I borrowed The Complete Slow Cooker from the library recently and this recipe was one of our favorites. I highly recommend this book if you’re looking for some new slow cooker recipes.
  • Whole chicken in the slow cooker, sweet potato vegetable bake – I’m trying to expand my side dish repertoire and this recipe from You Have it Made is first up.
  • Pot roast – I usually make this recipe with 2 onions and about a pound of peeled, chopped carrots
  • Chicken thighs, Chili-Spiced Sweet Potatoes with Maple Pecans – This sweet potato recipe is also from You Have it Made. I made it for a neighbor recently and now I want to make it for myself. It’s freezer-friendly, but I have not personally tested that out yet.

  Soup

  • White bean and garlic soup
  • Chicken noodle soup
  • Creamy tomato soup – This recipe was another great find in The Complete Slow Cooker. My kids really enjoy helping me prepare it too.
  • French onion soup

  Pasta

  • Pasta and meatballs – My mom made us a bunch of meatballs on a recent visit, so we have a glut on meatballs in our freezer right now. If you need an excellent meatball recipe, I recommend checking out this one from Serious Eats (paired with this sauce).
  • Lemony broccoli pasta – The last time I made this, my kids gobbled it up with no modifications. Here’s to repeat success!
  • Butterflies with chickpeas – This is another recipe from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. It looks simple but delicious.
  • Gnocchi with chicken sausage and tomatoes – Truth be told I am not feeling too confident that I will find decent gnocchi to use in this recipe. If I can’t find the good stuff then I’ll probably sub in tortellini.

  Pizza – For our weekly pizza I use this crust recipe with this sauce.

  Stove/Oven

  • Pepperoni pizza quinoa stuffed peppers – I imagine that some people would say “no” to pizza two nights in a row… fortunately I am not one of those people. I haven’t made these for a while, but they have been on my mind and I’m already excited to eat them.
  • Veggie Stir-Fry
  • Beef tacos with Budget Bytes’s taco seasoning
  • Cheesy chicken, broccoli, and rice
  Posted in Menu Plans | 0 Comments | Tagged chicken, Dinner, kid-friendly, Menu plan, pasta, side dish, slow cooker, soup

• Alternative Holiday Dinners (Part 2)

  Posted at 9:00 pm by Rachel, on January 8, 2019

  This is the second of a two post series on alternative holiday dinners, where I share two ways to celebrate without cooking a big, traditional dinner. For Part 1, click here.

  When it was time to plan for Christmas, I considered ordering catering from Earth Fare again. But when I checked their menu, it was exactly the same as the Thanksgiving menu. I suppose that there is a lot of overlap between Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, and I guess that is what I do not like about holiday meals: they can be kind of boring. I had already ruled out ordering from other stores because most of their meals were intended for 10-12 people, were too expensive, or just looked kind of gross.

  Some friends had mentioned that they only do appetizers and desserts for Christmas, and we really liked that idea. I think most people can agree that the sides are the best part of any holiday meal, and they generally are less time-consuming to prepare than the main course, so we decided to give it a try. The verdict? This will probably be how we do big holiday meals from now on.

  On the menu for the evening were Turkey and Stuffing Meatballs served with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, Pesto Pizza Rolls, Smoky Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower, cheese & crackers, and crudités (yes, 4/5 of those recipes are from Budget Bytes – all are amazing). It was more than enough for me, my husband, and 2 small children. We were able to have a several leftovers meals in the days following, so this spread could probably serve 6 or so people easily. I wanted a variety of foods including veggies and something that I knew the kids would eat. They love crudités and cheese and crackers, and that is mostly what they ate. We put those out first so the girls could start munching while everything else finished cooking. They also really enjoyed the cranberry sauce.

  We started prepping food a day or two ahead of Christmas. I made the cranberry sauce first. I had never attempted to make cranberry sauce from scratch before this, but I am happy to report that it was quick and easy and kept well in the fridge. Next up were the mashed potatoes. I am glad that I cooked these the night before because they were the most labor intensive item on the menu. I highly recommend this time-saving tip for peeling potatoes, by the way. I’ve peeled potatoes this way a few times now and it always works well for me.

  

  

  On Christmas Day, my husband mixed and shaped the meatballs in about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, I mixed the pizza dough in my stand mixer. I used a spoon to combine the ingredients and then let the mixer do the work of kneading for me (about 6 minutes around level 4 with the dough hook, in case you are wondering). Once that was done, I took the dough out, oiled the bowl, then returned the dough to the bowl to let it rise for a couple of hours. I also cut up the cauliflower and combined the seasonings in a separate small bowl, and sliced up and plated the veggies for the crudités.

  

  All in all I think that was about an hour of work. Once it was done we went over to our neighbors’ house to hang out for a couple of hours before coming home to finish up cooking. We turned the oven on right away, and I tossed the cauliflower with its seasonings and assembled the pizza rolls while it preheated (the pizza dough stretched and rolled up very easily!). Overall, it was still very low stress and the food was better than most holiday meals I’ve had.

  

  

  For dessert, we had an array of Christmas cookies – gingerbread, chocolate spritz, sugar cookies, and snickerdoodles – that we had been baking for the last few days.

  I know that this approach will not work for everyone, but it definitely helped make our Christmas dinner feel more festive and joyous. Really that is how a holiday should feel – more joyful than stressful. If cooking up a big “traditional” meal with all the fixings does not bring you joy, then maybe you would be better suited to an alternative meal.

  Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments | Tagged appetizer, Christmas, dessert, Dinner, holiday, kid-friendly, side dish

• Food Journal #3

  Posted at 12:00 am by Rachel, on March 15, 2018

  Welcome back to my Food Journal, where I share the more memorable things we’ve been eating, what we liked, and what we didn’t. Let’s get started…

  2/7 Sweet Potato Chickpea Buddha Bowl

  

  This recipe was a mixed bag. My husband loved it (as usual), but I was frustrated by how long it took to make and how the sweet potatoes ended up super crunchy. My #1 pet peeve with recipes is probably when the actual cooking time does not match up with how long the recipe says it will take. In the case of these Buddha bowls, the recipe states (many times) that this will take 30 minutes, and it ended up taking me about an hour. I often wonder if I am just a slow cook, and that may still be the case, however my prep speed would not affect the cooking times once food is in the oven. I did side-eye the recipe saying that a sweet potato half would cook through in like 25 minutes (because I usually dice mine and they take about 40 minutes to cook through), but I tried it anyway; as I have already said, the results were not good.

  I would be open to trying this again with diced sweet potatoes – it would be a little bit more prep work but at least they would cook through before everything else burned. I would also line the baking sheet with aluminum foil to make cleanup a bit easier. Overall the flavors were really good; I love the variety of vegetables this recipe incorporated, the chickpeas were outstanding, and the tahini sauce was something new for me. By the way, if you have never used tahini before (I hadn’t!), it is super runny when you open it, kind of similar to natural peanut butter in its consistency. I wish that I paid the extra dollar for the jar with a twist-on lid instead of one that needed to be opened with a can opener – that was a mess!

  2/13 Brunch at Founding Farmers

  For our wedding anniversary we decided to celebrate with our favorite meal of the day and took the kids out for brunch at Founding Farmers. This restaurant has a few locations and all of them are owned by the North Dakota Farmers Union. From what I understand, a lot of the ingredients they use are sourced from North Dakota farms – neat! We went at about 9 AM on a weekday morning, so it was not crowded – most of the other patrons looked like they were having working breakfasts.

  We were hungry when we arrived, so we ordered a Jefferson Donut, coffee, and a New York Egg Cream while we looked at the rest of the menu. Our waiter explained that the Jefferson Donut is Founding Farmers’s take on a cronut. It was fairly light and filled with a pastry cream. We all really liked the donut – if I could get a box of these instead of whatever Dunkin’ Donuts is offering, I would.

  

  

  I would not say I’m a coffee snob, but I don’t drink bad coffee anymore. If I order a coffee and it tastes old and watery, I throw it out. This happens more often than I like, so I didn’t have high hopes for Founding Farmers. I was pleasantly surprised, though, because the coffee was really good. I just got regular drip coffee; it was very smooth and delicious and when the waiter offered me a refill I gladly accepted. And how cute is that little milk carton?

  

  The egg cream was the most interesting item we ordered – I know that this is not unique to Founding Farmers, but it is the only time I have seen one on a restaurant menu. The best way I can describe it is watery, fizzy chocolate milk. We probably would not order it again – personally I would prefer regular chocolate milk – but it was fun to try it!

  There is no children’s menu here, so for our kids we ordered the Vanilla Cream Filled French Toast to share. This was a huge dish! My husband ended up eating some too because it was just so much (this was his favorite item we ordered, by the way). It was more like french toast sticks than french toast you would make at home, which is fine because my 3-year-old was all about dunking them in the syrup.

  

  I ordered the Roasted Vegetable Pan Scramble which comes with a biscuit (and butter & blueberry compote) and one side – I chose fruit. The sweet offerings on the menu were very tempting but we were going to have waffles for dinner so I went savory. This is an egg white scramble with a ton of veggies. Like most restaurant offerings, it was a large, filling dish. I found it a bit too salty, but overall still pretty good. I liked that I didn’t feel gross after eating it. The fruit was nice and fresh, and a good size for sharing with my kids. I really enjoyed the biscuit; if there was still room in my belly after eating everything else, I would have ordered more of them.

  

  My husband ordered the Traditional Ham Eggs Benedict with a side of Leek Hash Browns. If you are a fan of eggs benedict, this one was a well-executed classic that you may enjoy.

  

  We really liked Founding Farmers and are hoping to go back before we leave the area. The time that we went was pretty low-key, and we even saw some other people with kids towards the end of our meal.

  2/15 Dijon-Pecan 2-Step Chicken

  This is one of those rare recipes that is fast and easy to prep, inexpensive, and tasty. It took me about 5 minutes to put this together in the baking dish:

  

  I used Harris Teeter’s fresh chicken breasts (from the meat counter) – they are the best price in the store and they are massive. I used 4 of them since the recipe calls for 4 chicken breasts, but really 2 of these cut in half is probably the portion size the author had in mind. Mine took a little longer in the oven because the chicken breasts were so enormous.

  The fastest way to crush the pecans is to toss them in a plastic bag and roll a rolling pin over them a few times. If you want to be a bit greener, chopping them with a knife would probably not take that much longer.

  I served them with egg noodles (quick and in my pantry) and roasted broccoli and cauliflower. I took the lazy way out and used a bag of the already-prepped veggies from the produce section.

  

  

  2/20 Tuscan White Bean and Garlic Soup

  

  This soup is pure comfort. It is buttery and rich but not too heavy. If you are craving soup and don’t want to do a lot of work, then this is a recipe to try. I use Better than Bouillon to make my chicken broth; it has a great flavor that adds a lot to the depth of this soup. For recipes like this, I used to boil water and prepare the broth before adding it to the recipe, but lately I have just been adding water and the Better than Bouillon to the pot at the same time. I’m about to bring the water to a boil anyway, so why dirty another dish? Using the immersion blender to puree the soup cuts down on dishes too.

  I’ve heard that cream-based soups don’t freeze well, but I have frozen this one with a lot of success. Just give it a stir after reheating and it is as good as fresh. This is an easy recipe to double, it just takes a little longer to bring the soup to a simmer. I actually made a double batch this time because both of my kids slurp it up and I love the leftovers.

  2/21 Chipotle Portobello Oven Fajitas, Sweet Potato Cornbread

  We had company over this night and I completely forgot to take any pictures! These fajitas are great; all the deliciousness of Tex-Mex but without the heaviness of something loaded down with cheese. Now I am not always a mushroom person – I think it is a texture issue – but the mushrooms really shrivel up in the oven. Once they get mixed in with the other veggies I cannot usually tell that they are there. My kids have not eaten these yet because they do not really like spicy food, so I set aside some of the cut up veggies for them to eat raw with tortillas.

  The cornbread was interesting. The “basic” cornbread that I usually make is a lot denser and more savory. This recipe was very light and fluffy. It was also a lot sweeter (to be expected with that much added sugar). Honestly it kind of reminded me of cake… not that that is a bad thing! It was definitely more “dressed up” and I could see myself making this again if I find myself with some extra sour cream lying around, especially since it was not a big undertaking.

  2/22 Rosemary Chicken Thighs, Butternut Squash Gratin with Onions and Sage (Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)

  

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  In case you missed the recipe for my rosemary chicken thighs, you can find that here. This is one of my family’s favorite recipes. It is so flavorful, tender, and easy. My 1-year-old gobbles it up!

  I took advantage of this super easy main dish to experiment with a new side: butternut squash gratin with onions from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. While it was time-consuming to make, it was not labor intensive. I cut down on my prep work by using pre-diced butternut squash. I did a cost comparison a few months ago and found that a whole fresh butternut squash cost about the same as the package of cubed squash – really I think my dollar goes further with more squash from the package because I am not paying for the seeds and skin. Plus it just takes way less time. My food processor made the rest of the prep very fast. I used it to slice onions, shred cheese, and make bread crumbs. Like I said though, it is a time-consuming dish – 15 minutes to cook onions, then 8 minutes to brown the squash, and 50 minutes total in the oven. I like the idea of this dish, and it has piqued my interest in other gratins. My one complaint with it is that I
  found it too thyme-heavy. I decided to use dried thyme instead of fresh because I already had it on hand, and I think I miscalculated the conversion between fresh and dried thyme, so the thyme ended up overpowering the other flavors.

  

   

  Posted in Food Journal | 0 Comments | Tagged breakfast, chicken, Dinner, Founding Farmers, freezer friendly, kid-friendly, restaurant review, side dish, soup, vegetarian

• Food Journal #2

  Posted at 2:30 am by Rachel, on February 8, 2018

  Welcome back to the Food Journal, where I share the good and not-so-good of what I’ve cooked recently.

  1/30 Lemon Chicken

  My mom gave me a copy of The Asian Slow Cooker for Christmas, so I have been trying out some new recipes from there. My kids are not really fans of spicy food at the moment, so this week I tried the not-at-all-spicy lemon chicken to up the odds of them eating it. I think they each had one piece – small victories!

  The recipe itself was pretty easy to make. The week before I made cashew chicken from the same cookbook and managed to mess up before the end of the first step – I opened the cookbook to the wrong page and didn’t check which recipe it was before I started cooking – whoops! So this time I triple checked that I was on the correct page and it was smooth sailing.

  

  The texture at the end is a bit mushier than I would ideally like (especially as leftovers the next day), but that is the trade-off of cooking in the crock pot. I do wonder how easily these recipes could be adapted to be cooked on the stove top like Budget Bytes’s Easy Orange Chicken. Something to experiment with some day.

  1/31 Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

  This was my second time making this pasta dish, and it is solidly easy and kid-friendly. My older daughter likes that there is no sauce; I like that there is still a lot of flavor. But really, I peeled and sliced the garlic and prepped a salad while the water boiled, started cooking the garlic when I put the pasta in, and dinner was ready about 2 minutes after I took the pasta out of the water – you cannot get much quicker than that. I perked up lunchtime leftovers with a bit of parmesan and an extra sprinkle of crushed red pepper.

  

  

  2/2 Mini Garden Turkey Loaves

  These are so delicious – probably the most delicious meatloaves I have ever tasted. How delicious, you ask? I gave half of a muffin each to my 1-year-old and my 3-year-old. It took some persuading, but once the 3-year-old tried it, she ate her entire portion. After she ate her dinner (meatloaf and veggies), my husband gave her a cookie. She ate the cookie and then asked for more meatloaf. Actually, she asked for 3 of the muffins, but we started her off with just one more, which she and her sister shared.

  

  The first time I made them I did as directed, but this time I realized about 10 minutes before I started cooking that I didn’t have any bread in the house! I usually make my own breadcrumbs, so I don’t keep those on hand, and I started baking my own bread a few months ago, but forgot to bake a loaf in time for this recipe. Anyway, I had some ritz-style crackers on hand, so I tossed some into a plastic bag and crushed them with a rolling pin – they were a perfect breadcrumb substitute!

  If you wanted to save some time, I think you could saute the veggies ahead of time. I would wait to mix them with the meat, egg, breadcrumbs, and seasonings until right before cooking so that the breadcrumbs don’t get mushy. We did freeze these the first time we made them and they froze very well! A few minutes in the microwave and they were as delicious as right out the oven.

  2/3 Sicilian Pizza

  

  I wanted to up my pizza game a few months ago, and my search brought me to the Serious Eats Pizza Lab. This dough recipe and this sauce recipe are my current defaults for pizza night. The dough is so easy – one thing about my previous recipe that I struggled with was stretching the dough, and this one stretches itself most of the way out. The little stretching that I have to do takes maybe 2 minutes tops. I like to lift the dough and stretch from underneath the center. I have found that bread flour works better than all-purpose flour, but all-purpose flour still does a decent job. I also like to use the mixer’s paddle attachment to mix the dry ingredients, olive oil, and water, and then switch to the dough hook to knead for the last 6 minutes. The sauce is so delicious, I eat it with a spoon right out of the pot. I usually make a double batch because we eat a lot of pizza and it freezes well.

  It sounds so obvious now, but the most important thing I have learned in my quest for better pizza is to use better quality ingredients. Pizza is a pretty basic food in that it is really only 3 ingredients – bread, sauce, and cheese. Just making my own sauce and switching to mozzarella that is not pre-shredded made such a huge difference. Making the sauce in double batches and using the food processor to shred the cheese keeps the workload more manageable.

  2/5 “Roasted” chicken & mashed cannellini beans

  Lately this has been my favorite way to cook a whole chicken. First I put a few balls of foil in the bottom of the slow cooker, put the whole chicken on top, throw in some onions, carrots, celery, salt, & pepper, and cook for 8 hours on low. When that is done, I transfer the whole chicken to a broiler pan (or a small cookie sheet) with a roasting rack and broil it for 4 or 5 minutes. It comes out nice and juicy from the slow cooker and nicely browned with a crispy skin from the broiler.

  

  Mashed cannellini beans have been a favorite side dish in our house for a while now. I think they are a bit more nutritious than mashed potatoes or rice, and more flavorful as well. I suspected for a long time that these would freeze very well; in fact, back when I was pregnant with baby #2 I planned to make some and freeze them for a quick side dish, but I ran out of freezer space before I got the chance. So I finally decided to experiment. I made a batch of the beans a few months ago and popped the leftovers in a quart-sized bag in the freezer. At dinner time, I defrosted them in a bowl of hot water, transferred them to a bowl, and microwaved them for about a minute. The flavor and consistency were just as good as the freshly made mashed beans! This is a great option for freezer cooking!

  Posted in Food Journal | 0 Comments | Tagged Dinner, freezer friendly, side dish, slow cooker

• Food Journal #1

  Posted at 8:10 pm by Rachel, on November 26, 2017

  Welcome to my new series, Food Journal! This is where I will write about different recipes I try, what was good, and what wasn’t. Let’s get started…

  11/20 Fast and Easy Pasta with Blistered Cherry Tomato Sauce:

  Fast, easy, pasta… this recipe is basically all of my favorite things 😛 It was really fast and really easy; like Kenji said in the video, the hardest part was slicing (and peeling) the garlic. The second hardest part was putting the tomatoes into the pan without getting burned by splattering oil. Note to self: dumping the tomatoes into the pan from a large bowl will probably work better than tossing them in by the handful. Next time I want to start on the sauce BEFORE I put the pasta in the pot. My pasta cooked and was done probably 10 minutes before my sauce. I guess I’m a slow cook. Anyway, this pasta was awesome and so were its leftovers.

   

  

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  11/21 Slow Cooker Balsamic Chicken:

  I had this recipe pinned for a while but never made it because it looked a bit more complicated than I care to take on for a weeknight (or any night). Well, I made it and it looked JUST like the pictures! I decided to modify the recipe a bit, partly to cut down on the day-of prep work and partly to take advantage of a good price on chicken. After searing the meat, I prepped the sauce, and threw them both into a gallon sized freezer bag. I let it all cool off completely and put it into the freezer until this morning when I took it out to defrost. Prep in the morning was easy – dump the pearl onions into the slow cooker, rinse the mushrooms and dump them into the slow cooker (I used pre-sliced so no chopping for me!), add pre-minced garlic, rosemary, and a bay leaf, then just dump out the contents of my defrosted freezer bag.

   

  

  

  

  The only things I wasn’t crazy about were having to use so many pans & dishes and deseeding the pomegranate.

   

  

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  A lot of slow cooker recipes end up tasting the same: they aren’t interesting or fresh. But this one is! I really loved the recipe, and am excited to eat it again in a few weeks. If you’re like me and tend to skip the fresh herb garnish, do yourself a favor and pick up the fresh parsley that the recipe calls for. It definitely added something extra and rounded out the flavors.

   

  11/22 We had leftovers for dinner (really a great idea for clearing out your fridge the day before Thanksgiving) but I still spent ALL DAY in the kitchen. I baked an apple pie, a pumpkin pie, and some dinner rolls, plus the normal endless snacks for my kids.

  The apple pie took the longest time of the three recipes. I recently gave up on trying to make pie dough in my food processor and decided to try out this pie dough recipe from The Smitten Kitchen. I used a large balloon whisk to cut the butter into the flour – somehow I still don’t have a pastry blender. The whisk worked just fine, but I think a pastry blender might do this job more quickly, or at least be more comfortable to hold. The first crust was either too warm or I did not use enough flour, because it stuck to the counter when I rolled it out. So I pushed it all back into a disc shape, refloured the counter, and rolled it out again. Somewhere in the world a pastry chef is cringing. Really the pie turned out fine despite over-handling the dough, although all the extra flour on that first crust made it hard to seal it to the second crust.

   

  

  

  

  The filling for the apple pie was made of a mixture of 3 pounds of Granny Smiths and 2 pounds of Pink Ladies. I don’t think I want to make another apple dessert until I have an apple peeler of some sort. I think I say this every I make apple pie. But really, peeling and coring the apples with my vegetable peeler and paring knife takes me FOREVER. Also, if you attempt this recipe, remember to use a POT of some kind with a lid and not a SKILLET. I tried using my large cast iron skillet and had to use a mixing bowl for a makeshift lid. It was also really hard to stir the apples because the skillet was too shallow for the amount of food in it. It still worked, but it was a pain.

  

  Once the apple pie was in the oven, I started the bread dough. These rolls were light and fluffy, and the whole process was fast and easy thanks to my bread machine. One thing I learned while making this recipe is that you do not need to melt butter before adding it to the bread machine! Just cut it into smaller pieces and the machine will take care of the rest. Shaping the rolls was trickier than I expected because the dough was STICKY. So I just made basic pan rolls instead of the cloverleaf rolls I had originally planned.

   

  

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  This is my third year making this pumpkin pie recipe. The streusel topping makes it more impressive than the recipe from the canned pumpkin label, but it is about the same amount of work. My only modifications to the original recipe are 1) I double the crust and 2) I use all butter instead of butter + oil. It is a deep dish pie, but I use a deep cake pan and it works just fine.

  

   

  11/23 My mom hosted Thanksgiving at her house, so I didn’t do any cooking that day. However, she asked me to find a recipe for sweet potatoes with brown sugar and cinnamon, and I found this super easy recipe for roasted sweet potatoes that everyone loved. Like, I don’t think there were even any leftovers. I usually make savory roasted sweet potatoes with just olive oil, salt, and pepper, but this was a nice change for the holiday and all of the spices made them feel more special. If you want “holiday” sweet potatoes without the heaviness of a sweet potato casserole, I recommend these!

  Posted in Food Journal | 0 Comments | Tagged dessert, Dinner, freezer friendly, pie, recipe review, side dish, slow cooker, thanksgiving

• My Menu Plan: 11/5-12/16

  Posted at 3:06 am by Rachel, on November 12, 2017

  Time has flown by this last month! This menu plan is coming about a week late, but better late than never.

  For this plan, I tried to find lighter ways to enjoy cold weather comfort foods. Slow cooked meats, delicious veggies, and a healthy dose of beans to the rescue!

  

  Download this menu plan as a PDF

  These are some of the recipes I will be cooking this month:

  Zoodles Marinara – We have already tried this recipe. It was fast, easy, and tasty! Next time I will probably add some chicken – on its own this recipe is VERY light.

  *Ginger Peach Chicken – I have made this recipe in the past and it freezes VERY well. Add the peaches during the last 30 minutes of cooking so they don’t get mushy.

  *Tuscan White Bean and Garlic Soup – Another recipe that I have made and frozen before. Elegant, delicious, and filling. This is a meal that I don’t feel bad about pulling out of the freezer for guests.

  Winter Caprese Beet Noodle Pasta – This looks like such a fun and unique way to eat beets. I learned my lesson with the zoodles and will be serving some chicken with these.

  Mashed Cannellini Beans – This is a quick & easy side dish, and a great alternative to mashed potatoes. I have made this recipe before and have always wondered if it would freeze well, so I will be experimenting with that this month.

  Autumn Harvest Salad – I will be making this with chickpeas and roasted beets.

  Potato Kielbasa Skillet – This recipe has a lot of traditional “comfort food” elements – potatoes, sausage, and bacon – but it balances them out with a good portion of spinach. I usually use chicken sausage, and it is still super delicious.

  Fast and Easy Pasta with Blistered Cherry Tomato Sauce – We love pasta, and all of J. Kenji López-Alt’s recipe are delicious.

  *Slow Cooker Balsamic Chicken – I pinned this recipe a while ago but this is my first time making it. I seared the chicken and prepped the balsamic sauce prior to freezing.

  *Pot Stickers – My husband helped me assemble a double batch of these last weekend (I could only find one pound packages of pork at my grocery store, so I doubled the whole recipe). I plan to serve them over this Sesame Slaw.

  Creamy Mushroom Ragu – A friend gifted us a Hello Fresh box over the summer and this was one of the recipes we got to try. I will be making the mushroom ragu and polenta, but not the salad (although the salad is delicious if you want to try it!).

  I will be back with more updates throughout the month! Happy cooking!

   

  Posted in Menu Plans | 0 Comments | Tagged Dinner, freezer friendly, Menu plan, side dish, slow cooker

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