Week 6, 2022

Mon 2/7: Beer Braised Chicken Thighs with Apples and Greens, creamy goat cheese polenta. We love a chicken thigh recipe and tried this from an online acquaintance, since it had been a bit since our last variation. It’s a good thing chicken thighs are so forgiving because we made errors bc we totally got distracted — twice — watching a real life acquaintance on JEOPARDY!

Tues 2/8: mussels, salad, garlic bread. Refrigerator-stable mussels are one of my favorite quick meals. It was also handy to use up one of the extra rolls we bought before finishing pretzel rolls for last week’s German sausage sandwiches.

Wed 2/9: spaghetti squash w/ Italian sausage ragu. We had half a pound of Italian sausage from last week’s pasta and since we were planning pasta for this week’s veg meal, spaghetti squash stepped in. We used this InstantPot technique and holy cow, best ever. The “noodles” stayed nice and crunchy, even when warmed up for lunches over the next two days.

For the sauce, we browned the sausage, took it out, cooked down the end of a bag of baby carrots and some mushrooms, added some Italian seasoning and browned up a squeeze of tomato paste, then deglazed the pan with some red wine, let that cook a bit, then added half a can of plain tomato sauce and let it all meld. It tasted like it cooked for hours and had so much flavor you wouldn’t even miss onions or chunky tomatoes (;

Thur 2/10: Butternut Squash Ravioli with Brown Butter Sage Sauce. After making wontons for last week’s dim sum, I was excited to try making ravioli with the extra wrappers.

Let’s just say… lessons were learned. I didn’t want to overfill the wrappers and so they just flattened out when they cooked and there was too much dough. Next time we want to fold them into triangles, because we are excited to try again — to prove we can make it work.

Fri 2/11: fish tacos. I was real proud of myself for getting frozen cod out to thaw before I left for work. 11+ hours later…. it was still frozen. Backup frozen pizza to the rescue.

Sat 2/12: surf & turf. Hampton’s birthday, and he wanted steak Oscar with lobster tail. This was basically a redo of our Christmas Eve meal. And fantastic. We got NY strips from Smoke City Meats and scored a deal on the lobster thanks to the Amazon Prime Whole Foods weekly deals. It’s basically why we can’t get rid of Prime. That and MRS. MAISEL. There was also asparagus and roasted potatoes for soaking up the easiest and best hollandaise ever. [ok, yes, Oscar sauce should be bearnaise not hollandaise but Gordon Ramsay wasn’t judging so pppbbbb.]

Sun 2/13: party food. Because Super Bowl. We didn’t even take any pics tonight bc we started cooking and ate as we went. Hampton marinated frozen wings in sweet chili sauce, hoisin, ponzu, sambal oelek, and gochuchang for a sweet and spicy flavor. Frozen wings are great bc we could just make a handful as part of our buffet. We also had leftover soy chorizo in the fridge and mixed it up with leftover beer cheese for a dip.

We also used the rest of the crab from the surf and turf to make crab rangoon and a crab salad with piquillo peppers, cucumber, avocado, lime juice, and creme fraîche. Because I hate onions so much, I can never share when Hampton gets crab rangoons with Chinese delivery. See also, mayo and cilantro in seafood salads. Just like for the bread for mussel broth on Tuesday, an extra roll made excellent crostini.

Lunches: Fluffy Baked Rice with Chickpeas and Crispy Tofu Feta. Because I was using this for meal prep, didn’t bother crisping the tofu. Also, wilted down some kale in the leftover tofu marinade. Super filling and yummy.