You Are What You Eat: April 24 through May 7
Streak of not eating in a restaurant - 421 days and counting.
Streak of not getting takeout from a restaurant - ends at 110 days.
New Recipes for the Year: 45 (+9)
On May 7 we got takeout from Angelo's Pizza, which was the first time we explicitly ordered takeout since July 25, 2020, and the first time the takeout counter has reset since my coworkers bought us celebratory cookies. I'll probably stop tracking that now, since I don't see us going another 100+ days without takeout, and even the just ended streak wasn't close to the record. I still don't see any short term future that has us in a restaurant though, at least not with Birdie.
The nine new recipes in this fortnight came from each of the four issues of Eating Well from 2021 as well as two cookbooks, and on the whole were far more successful than the last increment.
- When I flipped through the May 2021 Eating Well, the immediate obvious recipe to try was the Crispy Tofu & Cilantro Balls. I made two changes to the recipe, one intentional and one accidental. The intentional one is that instead of frying in them oil on the stove I used the air fryer. This change made things faster and easier, and they sure tasted good to us despite the lack of oil. The accidental change was that when I was grinding pepper into the mixing bowl, somehow the top of the grinder came off and dumped a bunch of unground peppercorns into the mix. I managed to scoop most of them out, but a few slipped away, only to be found during dinner. That was more pepper than the recipe needed! Also, the mayo/sriracha/5-spice sauce was very good. This is comparatively easy to make so I expect it will turn up at a party some time. Remember parties?
- I can always use more interesting ways to roast vegetables, so I was happy to try the Apricot Glazed Chicken with Potatoes & Asparagus, also from the May 2021 Eating Well. Most of this recipe seemed very familiar, seeing as there aren't THAT many ways to roast vegetables, the but the glaze on the chicken combined apricot jam, mustard seeds, ginger and curry powder for a very unique and tasty flavor that guaranteed that we'll keep this recipe for future use.
- Our third recipe also had a unique sauce component. The Plantain-Crusted Chicken Tenders with Mango Dipping Sauce was from the April 2021 Eating Well. The only cooking challenge along the way was that I accidentally mixed the corn starch with the crushed plantain chips instead of having them in separate bowls. I can't tell if the gaps in the coating were from that mishap or if they were because I crushed the plantain chips by hand instead of running them through the food processor. Either way, the chicken was just ok, but the meal as a whole excelled because the mayo/Sriracha/mango chutney sauce was a big winner. We'll probably keep that sauce and ditch the complicated coating in favor of the usual breadcrumbs.
- Staying in the April 2021 Eating Well for the moment, the Chicken & Broccoli with Herb Butter Sauce was pretty simple to make. The butter and stock sauce was rich, but overall the meal didn't distinguish itself to make it again.
- Going back one issue to the March 2021 Eating Well, we tried out the Stir-Fried Shrimp & Sugar Snap Peas. It's hard to make a bad stir fry, and this one was certainly fine, but if I'm going to buy a bag of shrimp I can put it to better use than this.
- The second recipe from the March 2021 Eating Well also featured seafood. I made the Breakfast Salad with Smoked Salmon & Poached Eggs. It was a nice change of pace for a salad, but we made it mostly to have an excuse to have some extra smoked salmon for bagels, and it was more successful in that than as a salad.
- The January/February 2021 Eating Well contributed one recipe this time around, the Escarole, Cannellini Bean & Sausage Soup. We both liked this quite a bit. The beans (we used canned) and sausage (I cut up a harder sausage instead of ground) paired up to make a nice rich broth. M thought that we should have used a tougher green like kale for a better texture, but that's the worst we could say about this. It'll go in the rotation.
- The Weight Watchers Essential Freestyle Cookbook offered up the Arugula Salad with Walnuts and Bacon. This used a very similar dressing to the Breakfast salad, but the walnuts / turkey bacon combo came over better than the smoked salmon / egg combo. We don't normally have turkey bacon around, and I'm not sure I'd buy it just to make this, but it was enjoyable.
- Our last new recipe was our third ever from Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream Desserts. I made the Honeyed Buttermilk Ice Cream with Corn Bread Gravel. Technically, this was two recipes, one for the gravel and one for the ice cream, but I'll count them as one for our purposes here. Having said that, the gravel was delicious all by itself, and since it made more than the recipe called for I did eat some of it on its own quite happily.
In any event, the gravel (Jeni's term for solids that get added to the ice cream) feature kernels of corn, 1/2 a cup of honey, corn meal, flour, butter and milk powder. It was very sweet all by itself, but when it was added to an ice cream that featured another 2/3 cup of honey, buttermilk, heavy cream plus turmeric (for color) and cayenne (just a bit), the end result was a bright beautiful yellow ice cream that was extremely sweet. I love ice cream, and I like sweets, and even I found this too rich to eat more than a small bowl at one sitting. Like most of the Jeni's recipes it's complicated and time consuming, and it was so incredibly worth it.
Streak of not getting takeout from a restaurant - ends at 110 days.
New Recipes for the Year: 45 (+9)
On May 7 we got takeout from Angelo's Pizza, which was the first time we explicitly ordered takeout since July 25, 2020, and the first time the takeout counter has reset since my coworkers bought us celebratory cookies. I'll probably stop tracking that now, since I don't see us going another 100+ days without takeout, and even the just ended streak wasn't close to the record. I still don't see any short term future that has us in a restaurant though, at least not with Birdie.
The nine new recipes in this fortnight came from each of the four issues of Eating Well from 2021 as well as two cookbooks, and on the whole were far more successful than the last increment.
- When I flipped through the May 2021 Eating Well, the immediate obvious recipe to try was the Crispy Tofu & Cilantro Balls. I made two changes to the recipe, one intentional and one accidental. The intentional one is that instead of frying in them oil on the stove I used the air fryer. This change made things faster and easier, and they sure tasted good to us despite the lack of oil. The accidental change was that when I was grinding pepper into the mixing bowl, somehow the top of the grinder came off and dumped a bunch of unground peppercorns into the mix. I managed to scoop most of them out, but a few slipped away, only to be found during dinner. That was more pepper than the recipe needed! Also, the mayo/sriracha/5-spice sauce was very good. This is comparatively easy to make so I expect it will turn up at a party some time. Remember parties?
- I can always use more interesting ways to roast vegetables, so I was happy to try the Apricot Glazed Chicken with Potatoes & Asparagus, also from the May 2021 Eating Well. Most of this recipe seemed very familiar, seeing as there aren't THAT many ways to roast vegetables, the but the glaze on the chicken combined apricot jam, mustard seeds, ginger and curry powder for a very unique and tasty flavor that guaranteed that we'll keep this recipe for future use.
- Our third recipe also had a unique sauce component. The Plantain-Crusted Chicken Tenders with Mango Dipping Sauce was from the April 2021 Eating Well. The only cooking challenge along the way was that I accidentally mixed the corn starch with the crushed plantain chips instead of having them in separate bowls. I can't tell if the gaps in the coating were from that mishap or if they were because I crushed the plantain chips by hand instead of running them through the food processor. Either way, the chicken was just ok, but the meal as a whole excelled because the mayo/Sriracha/mango chutney sauce was a big winner. We'll probably keep that sauce and ditch the complicated coating in favor of the usual breadcrumbs.
- Staying in the April 2021 Eating Well for the moment, the Chicken & Broccoli with Herb Butter Sauce was pretty simple to make. The butter and stock sauce was rich, but overall the meal didn't distinguish itself to make it again.
- Going back one issue to the March 2021 Eating Well, we tried out the Stir-Fried Shrimp & Sugar Snap Peas. It's hard to make a bad stir fry, and this one was certainly fine, but if I'm going to buy a bag of shrimp I can put it to better use than this.
- The second recipe from the March 2021 Eating Well also featured seafood. I made the Breakfast Salad with Smoked Salmon & Poached Eggs. It was a nice change of pace for a salad, but we made it mostly to have an excuse to have some extra smoked salmon for bagels, and it was more successful in that than as a salad.
- The January/February 2021 Eating Well contributed one recipe this time around, the Escarole, Cannellini Bean & Sausage Soup. We both liked this quite a bit. The beans (we used canned) and sausage (I cut up a harder sausage instead of ground) paired up to make a nice rich broth. M thought that we should have used a tougher green like kale for a better texture, but that's the worst we could say about this. It'll go in the rotation.
- The Weight Watchers Essential Freestyle Cookbook offered up the Arugula Salad with Walnuts and Bacon. This used a very similar dressing to the Breakfast salad, but the walnuts / turkey bacon combo came over better than the smoked salmon / egg combo. We don't normally have turkey bacon around, and I'm not sure I'd buy it just to make this, but it was enjoyable.
- Our last new recipe was our third ever from Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream Desserts. I made the Honeyed Buttermilk Ice Cream with Corn Bread Gravel. Technically, this was two recipes, one for the gravel and one for the ice cream, but I'll count them as one for our purposes here. Having said that, the gravel was delicious all by itself, and since it made more than the recipe called for I did eat some of it on its own quite happily.
In any event, the gravel (Jeni's term for solids that get added to the ice cream) feature kernels of corn, 1/2 a cup of honey, corn meal, flour, butter and milk powder. It was very sweet all by itself, but when it was added to an ice cream that featured another 2/3 cup of honey, buttermilk, heavy cream plus turmeric (for color) and cayenne (just a bit), the end result was a bright beautiful yellow ice cream that was extremely sweet. I love ice cream, and I like sweets, and even I found this too rich to eat more than a small bowl at one sitting. Like most of the Jeni's recipes it's complicated and time consuming, and it was so incredibly worth it.