You Are What You Eat: January 1 through February 5
Streak of not eating inside a restaurant - 1046 days and counting (+44)
My new Recipes for the Year: 3 (+3)
M's new Recipes for the Year 0 (+0)
As I suspected, I prepared no new recipes in the December 24 - December 31 range from the end of last year. I did do a lot of cooking while we were South Carolina from January 2 to February 2 (the days on either end being transit days), but relatively little of it was new recipes. Since we were in a rented condo, I didn't have my full array of cooking gear, so we kept it pretty simple and basic on weekdays, with one or two takeout/patio meals on weekends, plus an occasional ice cream.
The house did have a crock pot (or if you prefer, a slow cooker), so I loaded that up pretty frequently to free up more time to take a walk on the beach after work. All three of the new recipes I tried while we were in South Carolina were crock pot recipes.
The first two came from a site called The Magical Slow Cooker that M had first found with the highly successful Slow Cooker Cilantro Lime Chicken she made back in May. When I was googling for crock pot recipes that site happened to come up again.
First up was the Slow Cooker Garlic Parmesan Chicken which was an entire meal in one container with minimal prep. If I made it again, I'd do some things like different, like adding the frozen green beans we had at the end. On the other hand, I doubt I'd make it again as it fell solidly into the "good enough to eat and not good enough to make again zone.
The second meal from that site had only been posted a few weeks earlier. I made the Slow Cooker Creamy Pesto Chicken, which was pretty much as rich and decadent as it sounds. Buying an entire jar of pesto just to add it to a crock pot was fun, but I'm not sure I'd do it again. It was almost too much of a good thing.
The third new crock pot recipe was kind of an accident. I was looking for a recipe online I had made before and simply couldn't find it. As I'm writing this I don't remember what recipe I was looking for, but I did find the Italian Sausage and Kale Soup from Taste of Home which was sort of similar. I ran afoul of the crock pot sizes; the one in the condo was smaller than mine at home, and so everything didn't quite fit. I ended up having to sautee a bunch of kale separately and add it in later. That mishap aside, the resulting soup was enjoyable enough.
Crock pots are great for working at home. Almost every Monday there is a company wide all-hands meeting that I can passively watch on my phone, so I can take the 30 minutes allotted for that to prep a crock pot or do other cooking prep. I recommend it!
My new Recipes for the Year: 3 (+3)
M's new Recipes for the Year 0 (+0)
As I suspected, I prepared no new recipes in the December 24 - December 31 range from the end of last year. I did do a lot of cooking while we were South Carolina from January 2 to February 2 (the days on either end being transit days), but relatively little of it was new recipes. Since we were in a rented condo, I didn't have my full array of cooking gear, so we kept it pretty simple and basic on weekdays, with one or two takeout/patio meals on weekends, plus an occasional ice cream.
The house did have a crock pot (or if you prefer, a slow cooker), so I loaded that up pretty frequently to free up more time to take a walk on the beach after work. All three of the new recipes I tried while we were in South Carolina were crock pot recipes.
The first two came from a site called The Magical Slow Cooker that M had first found with the highly successful Slow Cooker Cilantro Lime Chicken she made back in May. When I was googling for crock pot recipes that site happened to come up again.
First up was the Slow Cooker Garlic Parmesan Chicken which was an entire meal in one container with minimal prep. If I made it again, I'd do some things like different, like adding the frozen green beans we had at the end. On the other hand, I doubt I'd make it again as it fell solidly into the "good enough to eat and not good enough to make again zone.
The second meal from that site had only been posted a few weeks earlier. I made the Slow Cooker Creamy Pesto Chicken, which was pretty much as rich and decadent as it sounds. Buying an entire jar of pesto just to add it to a crock pot was fun, but I'm not sure I'd do it again. It was almost too much of a good thing.
The third new crock pot recipe was kind of an accident. I was looking for a recipe online I had made before and simply couldn't find it. As I'm writing this I don't remember what recipe I was looking for, but I did find the Italian Sausage and Kale Soup from Taste of Home which was sort of similar. I ran afoul of the crock pot sizes; the one in the condo was smaller than mine at home, and so everything didn't quite fit. I ended up having to sautee a bunch of kale separately and add it in later. That mishap aside, the resulting soup was enjoyable enough.
Crock pots are great for working at home. Almost every Monday there is a company wide all-hands meeting that I can passively watch on my phone, so I can take the 30 minutes allotted for that to prep a crock pot or do other cooking prep. I recommend it!