You Are What You Eat: September 25 through October 2
After we came back from PEI, the idea of eating home sounded pretty good.
Wednesday, September 25 - The night we got back I bought a bunch of groceries. Tacos are pretty easy to make, so this first full meal back was tacos. It's hard to screw up tacos, especially as M loves them. These had ground turkey and the usual fixings. Now, I've made tacos several different times this year, but this one was largely different from the cauliflower lime tacos or the chilaquiles or the chicken mole tacos so I'm counting this as a 'new' recipe.
Thursday, September 26 - You may have heard about or even tried out the meal kit trend, where some internet company will send you all the food items you need to make a complete meal from scratch. Unsurprisingly, our local grocery store chain is trying to counter this buy selling its own kits. I've been a bit curious about this, and a short week with a quick grocery store trip mid-week seemed like a good time to try it out. I bought and made the Green Goddess salad kit. My observations:
- There is SO much packing materials. Buying this kit increased the amount of garbage and recycling dramatically over what would have been generated if I had just bought the ingredients.
- The recipe was very easy to follow, with pictures and clear instructions. A lot of cookbooks could learn something from that.
- This recipe was just ok.
Overall, it was not an experiment I'm likely to repeat.
Friday, September 27 - At M's insistence, we went to Deagan's for the ninth time this year. After dinner we wandered over to 16-Bit Bar & Arcade. We had a few drinks while playing Frogger and other arcade classics.
Saturday, September 28 - Once we'd had a chance to go grocery shopping for real, we had all the ingredients to do some real cooking. We started with the Fish Tacos with Kiwi Salsa from the September 2019 Eating Well, with the fish (tilapia in this case) being fried up in the air fryer. The fish worked pretty well, M liked the kiwi salsa and we made tacos in yet another different way for the year.
Sunday, September 29 - The September 2019 Eating Well had a section of "Kid friendly" soups. Personally, I think feeding kids like adults is fine, but both the Chicken Enchilada Soup and the Creamy Tomato Soup with Tortellini were quite good, so I decided to press my luck with a recipe that intrigued me, the Chunky Cheeseburger Soup, with turkey swapped in for beef. It was a soup too far. The soup was good enough to eat, which is good because it made a lot of of leftovers, but not nearly good enough to make again. As proof, M avoided the leftovers.
Monday, September 30 - Fortunately, the first recipe from the October 2019 Eating Well reversed our culinary fortunes when we made the Chickpea Dumplings in Curried Tomato Sauce. The dumplings fell apart a bit during cooking, but that aesthetic problem aside, they were great. The sauce tasted very good and the dumplings were very enjoyable. We'll definitely be making this again, and I texted my family to urge them to try it.
Tuesday, October 1 - M had a college friend in town from the U.K. so we and a group of her classmates met at the Barroco in Lakewood for dinner. This was the fourth trip to a Barroco on the year, and it maintained it's high standards. We had a nice dinner, and chatted so long after the meal that they politely asked us to leave so we could close. I had the chicken fajitas was cheesey arepas.
Wednesday, October 2 - Our dinner plans on Tuesday coalesced mid-day, so in the morning I had hedged my bets by tossing Smoky Slow-Cooker Black Beans from the September 2019 Eating Well in the slow cooker, sans ham hock and minus the collard greens topping. They cooled off in the fridge nicely and for dinner they accompanied the Sweet Potato Quesadillas from Moosewood Favorites. M loves sweet potatoes and quesadilla; the combination arrested her but didn't necessarily do as much for me.
After dinner I went to the Red Rose to watch playoff baseball. M came over mid-game. About that game, the less said the better. At least the beer and wings cushioned the blow. It was our second time there this year.
Totals For This Post
Days Covered: 8
Meals / Dishes Cooked: 6 / 7
New Recipes: 7
Leftover Nights: 0
Eating Out / Take Out Meals: 3
Eating Out Drinks/Dessert Only: 1
New To Me Restaurants: 0
Repeated Restaurants in 2019: 3
Parties / Friends / Family Cooked: 0
Repeated Recipes: 0
Overall Totals 2019 (less January 1)
Days Covered: 274
Meals / Dishes Cooked: 161 / 219
New Recipes: 100
Leftover Nights: 10
Eating Out / Take Out Meals: 137
Eating Out Drinks/Dessert Only: 57
New To Me Restaurants: 84
Repeated Restaurants in 2019: 51
Parties / Friends / Family Cooked: 21
Repeated Recipes: 24
Wednesday, September 25 - The night we got back I bought a bunch of groceries. Tacos are pretty easy to make, so this first full meal back was tacos. It's hard to screw up tacos, especially as M loves them. These had ground turkey and the usual fixings. Now, I've made tacos several different times this year, but this one was largely different from the cauliflower lime tacos or the chilaquiles or the chicken mole tacos so I'm counting this as a 'new' recipe.
Thursday, September 26 - You may have heard about or even tried out the meal kit trend, where some internet company will send you all the food items you need to make a complete meal from scratch. Unsurprisingly, our local grocery store chain is trying to counter this buy selling its own kits. I've been a bit curious about this, and a short week with a quick grocery store trip mid-week seemed like a good time to try it out. I bought and made the Green Goddess salad kit. My observations:
- There is SO much packing materials. Buying this kit increased the amount of garbage and recycling dramatically over what would have been generated if I had just bought the ingredients.
- The recipe was very easy to follow, with pictures and clear instructions. A lot of cookbooks could learn something from that.
- This recipe was just ok.
Overall, it was not an experiment I'm likely to repeat.
Friday, September 27 - At M's insistence, we went to Deagan's for the ninth time this year. After dinner we wandered over to 16-Bit Bar & Arcade. We had a few drinks while playing Frogger and other arcade classics.
Saturday, September 28 - Once we'd had a chance to go grocery shopping for real, we had all the ingredients to do some real cooking. We started with the Fish Tacos with Kiwi Salsa from the September 2019 Eating Well, with the fish (tilapia in this case) being fried up in the air fryer. The fish worked pretty well, M liked the kiwi salsa and we made tacos in yet another different way for the year.
Sunday, September 29 - The September 2019 Eating Well had a section of "Kid friendly" soups. Personally, I think feeding kids like adults is fine, but both the Chicken Enchilada Soup and the Creamy Tomato Soup with Tortellini were quite good, so I decided to press my luck with a recipe that intrigued me, the Chunky Cheeseburger Soup, with turkey swapped in for beef. It was a soup too far. The soup was good enough to eat, which is good because it made a lot of of leftovers, but not nearly good enough to make again. As proof, M avoided the leftovers.
Monday, September 30 - Fortunately, the first recipe from the October 2019 Eating Well reversed our culinary fortunes when we made the Chickpea Dumplings in Curried Tomato Sauce. The dumplings fell apart a bit during cooking, but that aesthetic problem aside, they were great. The sauce tasted very good and the dumplings were very enjoyable. We'll definitely be making this again, and I texted my family to urge them to try it.
Tuesday, October 1 - M had a college friend in town from the U.K. so we and a group of her classmates met at the Barroco in Lakewood for dinner. This was the fourth trip to a Barroco on the year, and it maintained it's high standards. We had a nice dinner, and chatted so long after the meal that they politely asked us to leave so we could close. I had the chicken fajitas was cheesey arepas.
Wednesday, October 2 - Our dinner plans on Tuesday coalesced mid-day, so in the morning I had hedged my bets by tossing Smoky Slow-Cooker Black Beans from the September 2019 Eating Well in the slow cooker, sans ham hock and minus the collard greens topping. They cooled off in the fridge nicely and for dinner they accompanied the Sweet Potato Quesadillas from Moosewood Favorites. M loves sweet potatoes and quesadilla; the combination arrested her but didn't necessarily do as much for me.
After dinner I went to the Red Rose to watch playoff baseball. M came over mid-game. About that game, the less said the better. At least the beer and wings cushioned the blow. It was our second time there this year.
Totals For This Post
Days Covered: 8
Meals / Dishes Cooked: 6 / 7
New Recipes: 7
Leftover Nights: 0
Eating Out / Take Out Meals: 3
Eating Out Drinks/Dessert Only: 1
New To Me Restaurants: 0
Repeated Restaurants in 2019: 3
Parties / Friends / Family Cooked: 0
Repeated Recipes: 0
Overall Totals 2019 (less January 1)
Days Covered: 274
Meals / Dishes Cooked: 161 / 219
New Recipes: 100
Leftover Nights: 10
Eating Out / Take Out Meals: 137
Eating Out Drinks/Dessert Only: 57
New To Me Restaurants: 84
Repeated Restaurants in 2019: 51
Parties / Friends / Family Cooked: 21
Repeated Recipes: 24