Friday, March 28, 2014

Lots of Cooking, No Posting

Welcome to the world's worst food blog. I'm not doing so well at posting. Sorry. And, what you get here today, is just pictures of stuff I made and what they are, but no recipes. I suck.

A few months ago, we were turned on to Blue Apron by my sister. She was able to get us our first box of meals for free. If you didn't click on that link, this is what it is:
  • Complete meals with 500-700 calories per serving
  • 35 minutes to prepare on average
  • Pre-portioned ingredients to save time and reduce waste
  • Easy to follow beautifully printed recipe cards
All this comes in a well packaged box, with 3 meals, once a week. You can skip weeks, cancel anytime, etc. We tried it out for free, then forgot to skip the next box, so did a second one. It turned out really well, and we did a few more before deciding to cancel. Why? Because you have to buy meals in increments of 2 portions. Four portions would be too much for us, but they don't let you do 3. And, we still needed to supplement a little. All-in-all, it was a decent experience, I would recommend it to busy households (so, everyone), and it got me cooking more often, again. The other thing is that I had to follow instructions, and I'm ALWAYS on a time crunch to make dinner. Following directions slows me down. Consequently, though, it's made my impromptu "Iron Chef" style dinners seem faster to make.

So, what have I been cooking? Here are a few things I took pictures of.
1. Our first Blue Apron Meal: chicken tortilla soup.
 2. Pan roasted flat iron steak, roasted baby carrots, roasted parsnips, Costco's brown rice and quinoa mix, and toast. Looks like there was a little bit of sauce, too.
 3. Another B.A. meal: pan roasted pork tenderloin with citrus salad and farro.
 4. Seahawks cookies.
 5. Pan roasted hake with...um, I suck...I can't remember!
 6. Maybe this was the hake? But, that is freekah with Brussels sprouts the fish is sitting on, and it rocks!
 7. I made a parsley cake for St. Patrick's Day. Um, well. Let's just say, it, at least, fit the occasion.
 8. I was pretty proud of this one. Whole chicken legs "roasted" in the slow cooker. The legs were seasoned with Tom Douglas' pork Rub With Love , and sat on top of a layer of thinly sliced Yukon gold potatoes, which were coated in duck fat. I was hoping that the potatoes would get nice and crispy, since no liquid was added to the pot, but the legs produced so much liquid that the potatoes were falling apart. I decided to mash them up, and it was a hit with the family. The vegetables on the side were zucchinis sauteed with sun dried tomatoes.
 9. Green chilli sirloin slider with cheddar cheese, sauteed Brussels sprouts with browned butter balsamic vinaigrette.
 10. Crosby ate this one night. It's farro, pureed with sauteed onions and orange bell peppers.
 11. The farro and onion/bell pepper mix from above, are sitting under this (poorly) pan roasted cod fish, with steamed broccolini. I made my farro with the same method I would make risotto.
12. Slower cooker lasagna. Who knew?! I put layers of thinly sliced zucchini between pasta, meat and cheese, and it was the best lasagna I've ever made. Not particularly attractive. Oh, and I used Italian seasoned ground chicken.
There you have it! A bunch of meals I have cooked recently. Again, sorry for the lack of recipes, but these really are all things you can find online with a quick little help from Google, or Bing, or whatever other search engine you prefer.

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