Dinner Last Night: Slow Cooker Korean Tacos

Crockpot for the win - yet again! These Korean pork tacos were a hit with my family, and pretty darn easy. Just chopped up matchstick carrots, Persian cucumbers, cilantro, and a little cabbage slaw, and pack in a tortilla. The perfect amount of sweet, spice, and crunch. 

image/dinneralovestory

Dinner Last Night: Lamb and Mint Flatbread

After bookmarking this recipe and deciding it was a little too complex for a weeknight meal, I found a simplified version a la Rachael Ray which was just as tasty!  The yogurt + sauce + cuminy lamb + flatbread made for a delicious combination, which my kids devoured as well. Dinner for the win! Now this tabbouleh recipe I paired with it, that's another story, not a hit at all...Way too lemony. 

Anyone have a great, simple tabbouleh recipe?

image/rachaelray

Weeknight Baking: Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble Pie

It's the height or rhubarb season and I'm determined not to let the short season of my favorite fruit (that's actually a vegetable) pass me by! Last week, I made Smitten Kitchen's almond rhubarb picnic bars, this week was Joy the Baker's strawberry rhubarb crumble pie atop my favorite butter crust, also from Joy the Baker's cookbook, Homemade Decadence. Whoever thought to marry strawberry + rhubarb is a bonafide genius in my mind's eye. Utterly delicious! With our cool temperature these past few days, it's been the perfect weather for pie baking, where the oven makes the kitchen feel cozy instead of stifling. Bon appetite!

image/joythebaker

Dinner Last Night: Indian Butter Chicken

All this time I've been making chicken tikka masala - but I think Indian butter chicken is officially my new fave. This recipe was delish, and my kids gobbled it up too. Paired with frozen/reheate naan from Whole Foods, and Indian creamed chicken (with coconut milk) from Gwyneth's It's All Easy and we had ourselves a dinner! Makes great leftovers too - cha-ching!

image/dinneralovestory

Salt Fat Acid Heat

Have you read the mega-cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat?  Truthfully, I checked this book out from the library and found it a bit daunting.  It's packed with useful tips, tricks, and information to understand and master the art of cooking, using the four essential elements of food; salt, fat, acid, and heat.  But...it is extremely text and science heavy, which was too much for me to digest.

However, the Netflix original TV show of the same name was much more my speed!  Samin Nosrat travels the globe in search of flavor, and her travels and culinary adventures are a joy to watch.  Plus, it's only four episodes, so a quick binge.  One episode for each element.  Salt. Fat. Acid. Heat.  Check out this preview below.

Cookbook Crush: The Lost Kitchen

Have you heard of The Lost Kitchen?  It's a farm to table restaurant in Freedom, Maine that's become so hugely popular they only take reservations by written note. How clever is that?  The chef, Erin French changed to this reservation policy after seeing her demand outpaced her restaurant size.  Low and behold, she received 20,000 reservation requests!  Intrigued by this concept and her restaurant itself, I did some digging, and discovered The Lost Kitchen also has a cookbook, also titled The Lost Kitchen.

The cookbook catalogues her arduous journey to from a secret supper club to establishing the restaurant, only to be literally locked out and lose everything in a messy divorce.  I found her story extremely compelling, a bonus narrative to the pages upon pages of delicious farm fresh recipes.  Notably the rhubarb spoon cake, chamomile creme brûlée, and apple cider and rosemary sorbet (she does have more recipes than purely desserts, I assure you).  

It's a cookbook I hadn't seen on any recent bestseller lists, or Amazon bookstore shelves, but one worthy of a read, or at least a timely flip through. 

Dinner Last Night: Black Bean Sweet Potato Enchiladas

Made this for dinner last night after viewing it on Liz's instagram - a delicious meat-free entree with minimal prep.  A great weeknight meal.  Too bad it wasn't a huge hit with my kids - one of my kiddos loves sweet potatoes so I thought this recipe would be a slam dunk but...no dice.  Maybe next time?  You snooze you lose, more leftovers for mom, I guess.

image/cookieandkate

Weeknight Baking: Cranberry Crumble Pie

This may not be the most aesthetically pleasing, beautiful pie, but it suuuuure was delicious!  After it almost caused two kitchen fires, I'm thankful it was tasty, as I certainly hoped it would be worth the effort.  

I received Sister Pie, the cookbook as a gift this season. This cookbook shares the same name as the flagship Detroit bakery, which is changing the game and part of the reason for the recent economic flourish in Detroit.  They consider themselves a "triple bottom line business," working to support their employees, environment, and the economy.  Run by two sisters, featuring an all-female staff, it's been on my list of places to visit upon our next trip to see family back in Michigan.   Their cookbook is absolutely gorgeous, heartfelt vignettes and beautiful matte pages of how-tos and mouthwatering recipes.  I mean...Squash Tahini Cardamom, Apricot Raspberry Rose, Sour Cherry Bourbon...one will be baking pies for days after reading this one!  This Christmas, I opted for the Cranberry Crumble Pie - I'm always a sucker for cranberries, as they usually get pegged as being purely a Thanksgiving food, when really their flavor has so much potential.  

The kitchen fires were mostly my fault, turns out when you're baking a butter-rich crust, you ought to have a baking sheet underneath the pie dish.  A lesson I learned when blind baking the crust prior to adding the filling and crumble.  A memo which somehow did not get relayed to my mom when we baked the actual pie at her house.  Hence, almost two kitchen fires.

Thank goodness it was delicious and worth all the hassle, and oven cleanings that ensued.

Dinner Last Night: Pork Ragu

I've been slacking on dinner last night posts lately...sorry about that.  I swear, after the holidays I'll catch up and post all the new recipes I've tried from my steady stream of cookbooks checked out from the library.  After much hype on several blogs, we tried Dinner A Love Story's pork ragu last night.  And it was superb!  It slow cooked all afternoon while my family and I had a Polar Express excursion.  We came home to a house punctuated with a delectable savory aroma, dinner fully cooked, and within minutes, bellies full.  Not sure if it was the hot sauce or the fennel seed, but the flavors were especially on point.  Definitely worth a bookmark for a rainy day.

image/dinneralovestory

Dinner Last Night: Korean BBQ Burrito

Do you read Pinch of Yum?  If not, do yourself a favor right now, and take a moment to bookmark Lindsay's food blog.  It's packed with recipe success stories; many of them crockpot, easy to execute, and delicious to devour.  These Korean BBQ Burritos were no exception.  We ate them twice last week, and I'm not one for repeating meals too often.  If you need further convincing, the meat slow roasts all day to gustatory perfection, and once you pack your tortilla full of rice, cilantro, kimchi, green onions, and Sriracha mayo - wowza that's one heck of a burrito!

Try them.  You won't be disappointed.  

image/pinchofyum

Fall Favorites: Crockpot Applesauce

I've tried lots of applesauce recipes - and this recipe is by far the favorite.  Maybe it's the tartness of the granny smith apples or the richness of the apple cider, or the dash of salt just for good measure, but it's tart + sweet + smooth all at once.  Plus, it couldn't be easier to throw together.  God bless the crockpot.  Hands down, it's a fall favorite.  Eating this with oatmeal on a crisp fall morning feels like an indulgence, I hope you get a chance to try this for yourself this season.

image via sayyes

Weekend Baking: Baked Oatmeal

Ever since omitting eggs from my diet, I've felt better, but have been struggling with breakfast.  Since we tend to run about 10 minutes behind schedule, I'm often stashing a protein bar in my bag or eating a cold toaster waffle while running out the door.  

However, on the occasional weekend, when I have all my ducks in a row, the stars align, and somehow I'm prepared and on top of my game, I make this baked oatmeal.  This recipe has been shared amongst my girlfriends, and made in the kitchens of many a girls trip.  Each prepares this oatmeal a tiny bit differently, each adding their own twist or variation, and yet all are delicious.  I personally add coconut chips, coconut milk, sliced almonds, omit the egg, and go heavy on the bananas and frozen berries.  It's relatively quick to throw together, bakes and reheats wonderfully.  It's the perfect breakfast to make ahead and eat throughout the week.

I hope you love it as much as I do!

image/marthastewart

Cookbook Crush: The Minimalist Kitchen

I am going through a bit of a cookbook renaissance my friends.  I've noticed my cookbook shelf has a few stand out favorites and a sizable handful gathering dust.  I no longer turn to Giada DeLaurentiis with the same enthusiasm as I once did, namely since we've cut back considerably on our pasta consumption.  As for other favorites of years past, I've decided it's time to swap out those I've neglected and refresh my shelf with some new titles.

I still check everything potential cookbook out from the library first.  If you don't do this, convert now, it's a huge money saver!  If you're anything like me, who can easily be swept up in the silken pages and delicious color photos of cookbooks when they're breezily displayed on bookstore shelves.  At any given time, I have about ten cookbooks in my library queue.  Typically there is a wait, so I just bide my time and enjoy my thirty days once they arrive in my name.  I typically read them post bedtime, bookmarking the recipes, before trying to discern if number of sticky notes justifies the price.

A recent favorite which will surely be dogeared once it arrives is The Minimalist Kitchen, the brainchild of Melissa Coleman, you may know her from the blog The Faux Martha.  This cookbook boasts all my favorite things, lovely full paged color photos of the food, easy step-by-step directions, easy tabs indicating make ahead, or ideas for quick substitutions should you not have an ingredient on hand.  I also want to eat every. damn. thing. 

I made her quinoa bimibap bowls for dinner, which was surprisingly well received by my kids, hooray!  Other pages currently sporting sticky notes include the blender dutch baby, soba bowls with peanut sauce, a quick 'n dirty fried rice, takeout cashew chicken, baked falafel pitas with tahini sauce, and while I'm not currently indulging in dairy, I couldn't help but salivate over the recipe for roasted banana cream pie.

Sound good?  Well then, put it on hold already!

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Weeknight Baking: Double Chocolate Banana Bread

A day of endless rain - torrential downpour at times - made for a cozy afternoon indoors, baking.  With four brown spotting bananas calling out to me on the counter, I opted for banana bread when my daughter insisted, "chocolate banana bread!"  Upon the suggestion I shrugged, oh what the heck, who am I to withhold chocolate from our banana bread.  This recipe did not disappoint.  Truth be told, about 90% of it was eaten within a day.  Yum.

image/smittenkitchen

Dinner Last Night: Caramelized Pork Tacos with Pineapple Salsa

Add this one to your repertoire peeps!  This recipe takes pork loin to a whole new dimension - I am a fan, this will definitely be a repeat recipe in our home.  In addition, the pineapple, red onion, cilantro, cucumber salsa is light, crunchy, and refreshing, capped off with a zingy Sriracha mayo.  Holy yum!

image/pinchofyum

Dinner Last Night: Slow Cooker Creamy Lentil Soup with Dry-Rub Sweet Potato Steaks & Green Bean Slaw

In light of a New Year's detox, I opted to make this easy slow cooker creamy lentil soup.  Pretty easy, just dump the ingredients, let them marinate for 7 hours and then puree 1 can of chickpeas, lemon, and water for the "creamy" factor.  Delicious!  

I paired with a recipe from Deb Perelman's newest Smitten Kitchen cookbook, dry-rub sweet potato steaks with green bean slaw.  Never had sweet potatoes this way, and man oh man, were they good!  The "slaw" is made up of blanched green beans mixed with a tangy vinaigrette.  Would post the recipe if I could find a link online, but alas, there was none...

image/cookinglight

Dinner Last Night: Slow Cooker Butternut-Apple Soup with Crispy Leeks

Continuing on my dairy-free, and mostly gluten-free journey, I've been seeking out good soup alternatives as the weather gets chilly.  Historically I'd be all about a great cream-based or baked potato soup (yummm!), but, for the time being, I'm shelving those cravings and looking forward to healthier alternatives.  This Butternut-Apple Soup with Crispy Leeks is from the Skinnytaste: Fast and Slow cookbook (which I highly recommend).  It's sooo crazy simple!  You can dress it up or down, I've made it with frozen butternut squash, and apple with skin on it, and a yellow onion - although leeks does elevate it a touch.  All you need is an immersion blender or food processor to blend the final product, and voila!

Ingredients:

2 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed

1 leek (white parts only), rinsed well and roughly chopped

1 medium Granny Smith apple, peeled and roughly chopped

1 medium carrot, roughly chopped

2 1/2 cups reduced-sodium chicken or vegetable broth*

1/2 cup canned coconut milk

For garnish:

1 tablespoon olive oil

3/4 cup thinly sliced leeks (white parts only), rinsed well

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Coconut milk, for drizzling (optional)

*Read the label to be sure this product is gluten-free.

Cooking Directions

For the soup:

Place the squash, leek, apple, carrot, and broth in a slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 8 hours, until the squash is soft and cooked through.

Stir the coconut milk into the soup mixture. Puree the soup in the cooker with an immersion blender until smooth (or in a stand blender, in batches).

For the garnish:

Heat a medium nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Add the oil and leeks and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden and crisp, about 10 minutes. Season with the salt.

To serve, pour the soup into 6 serving bowls and garnish with the crispy leeks. If desired, drizzle with a little coconut milk.

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Meal Planning 102

It's been a while since I've posted about meal planning, and wanted to follow up with a few tips and tricks, as these are some of my favorite posts on the blogs I read.

I love having a rotating selection of dinner options, I've never been a "Monday meatloaf, Tuesday tacos" kind of gal.  And while as a family we love variety, we also depend on consistency. I've slowly built up an arsenal of meals that are crowd pleasers for myself, husband, and kids.  However, even then, I do find myself getting bored of our usual go-tos, especially as the seasons change, and shepherd's pie just isn't going to cut it in the heat of summer.  I'm always prowling popular new cookbooks (borrowed from the library), blogs, pinterest, and the like for fresh finds to rotate into the mix. Our criteria for a complete meal usually involves a protein, vegetable or two, and occasionally a bread/starch component.

First tip I have to help keep myself grounded and not too repetitive is to keep a dinner diary.  Bear with me, I realize this sounds ridiculously type-A and difficult, but basically it's a journal where I jot down what we eat for dinner every night.  One sentence.  Quick. Easy. Simple.  It's also helpful to remind myself "ooh, I forgot about that...we should try that again!" Or a reminder, "yuck, that was disgusting and way too much work.  Never again."

I typically meal plan on the weekend, looking ahead to the week, and planning meals based around various evening activities that might through a wrench in the actual making of dinner (e.g. one parent working late, one parent out, dinner at my parents' house, etc).  I write it all out and post on the refrigerator.  In a perfect world there is some recipe overlap (i.e. dill for salmon one night and dill for a salad another) in an effort to maximize ingredient use and simplify our grocery list, however that's definitely not always the case.

A few of our go-to Spring/early summer favorites include

+ Greek sheetpan chicken and spanakopita with Greek salad

+ ground pork bahn mi sandwiches (or lettuce wraps) with tamari roasted broccoli

+ BBQ pineapple hard shell tacos (we use fresh pineapple) with caprese salad

+ roasted Sriracha salmon with coconut rice and crispy kale

+ slow cooker Korean beef tacos and roasted veggies

+ homemade pizza on the grill with fruit salad and grilled corn

+ favorite turkey burgers with corn on the cob and carrot salad

+ slow cooker chicken tikka masala with Indian creamed spinach over coconut rice

+ p.f. changs style chicken lettuce wraps with roasted carrots and broccoli 

What are your go-to weeknight meals?

Dinner Last Night: Crockpot Salsa Verde Chicken Pozole

Smitten Kitchen, move aside, Half Baked Harvest might officially be my new favorite food blog. Thus far, everything made from this site has been a huge hit!  Another plus is the enormous archives of crockpot recipes they boast!  Including this one, crockpot salsa verde chicken pozole.

I modified a few things to cut down the prep time including baking poblanos instead of sautéing in order to loosen skins for peeling.  I also used canned tomatillos and pureed without sautéing which recipe recommends. However, I feel it still turned out superb for a healthy, hearty dinner.

Our garnishes were not nearly as fancy as this beautiful photograph, we opted for a few tortilla chips and avocado slices on top and dug right in.  Wasn't sure if this would be a hit with the kiddos, but my son loved it too, he kept digging his spoon into his baby bowl for more (always a sign of a good dinner!).

image/halfbakedharvest

Weekend Baking: Pumpkin Scones

Tis the season for pumpkin, and I just can't get enough!  This weekend, I made these pumpkin scones during nap time.  I didn't have cranberries on hand (who does in October!?) so I substituted in a large handful of pomegranate seeds, which turned out splendidly and was visually appealing as well, as though dotted with deep red jewels.  

image/bonappetit