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.

Season of Stew

I've been on a crazy stew kick. I make about one a week. Each one different than the other. It started about a month ago, when our summer CSA had come to an end, and my winter boxes were about to start coming. I still had parsnips, squash, carrots, treviso, list goes on. Don't get me wrong, I love this. If you have three busy, small children (boys, to be exact), it can be hard to carve out the time to cut up all your wonderful veggies. This is especially tricky if one of them needs to be held more on an particular day, or, if they are sick. Heck, it's tricky even with one healthy child in the household!

My vegetables had been piling up. I did my best to go through the fridge and compost what was no longer usable, and tried to come up with a delicious meal with what needed to be used up quickly. I also found some frozen chicken sausages in my freezer. And, I just so happened to come across a recipe for sausage and potato stew on the Internet. Improvise here, improvise there, ta-da! dinner was served.

At first, my children were apprehensive. This was the only dish made that evening and they were hungry. Everything was all mixed in, which can be hit or miss for my little guys. Hunger won, and they ate what they could that night. With each subsequent stew since, they have gotten better. One night, I even got a, "Mmmmm," from Vincent. Boo-ya!

I've been so bad about taking pictures, but here are a couple from the first stew.

 The little balls in there are Israeli cous cous.

Lamb Sliders

I was able to find ground burgers from AmazonFresh, and slider buns. I decided to try it out.

The buns were tiny, but turned out to be an excitement to the kids. The burger meat were two large, half pound patties - huge. I cut each into quarters, to go with the eight buns. David came home and grilled them up, along with sliced patty pan squash and fennel bulbs. We put Swiss cheese on the sliders (mine had goat). The kids seemed into it. Tyler was actually only so so, but Vincent had two, one without cheese and bun.

All-in-all, a successful meal. The kids did not complain about the squash. We also had steamed Romano beans. I should have taken pictures.

Garlic and Rosemary Pork Roast

I made this recipe tonight: 
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/garlic-and-rosemary-roast-pork-loin 

This is what mine looked like (with roasted fingerling potatoes and carrots, and dill mayo for dipping). Vincent said the meat was his favorite part of tonight's meal, which is HUGE.

 

Mojo Chicken, Cilantro Rice, Savory Black Beans

I have been dreaming of mojo chicken since culinary school. One of my chef instructors made it for us, and it was so damn good. But, I can't seem to recreate it the way she made it, nor can I find a recipe/method like hers. It wasn't part of the curriculum, either, so it's not in my (gigantic) recipe binder from that class. 

But, I keep trying. This one I made was not even close, but it was tasty enough. The night I made it, I did not serve it with the rice and beans, but rather just tortillas. I made the rice and beans about a week later to go with bread fish tacos. I found the whole meal from macheesmo.com. But, I tweeked it work for my family.

For the chicken:

-marinade = 1 cup orange juice, juice of 1 lime, garlic, cilantro, ground cumin, salt and pepper.

-I used chicken legs and thighs, which I removed the bones, skin on

-marinate the chicken for at least  1 hour

-drain the marinade, and sear the chicken, skin side down, in a hot skillet with oil. 

-once the skin is browned, flip over the chicken pieces and pop the pan into a hot (450F) oven, or continue to cook on the stove, turning the burner down to medium, until cooked through.

Cilantro Rice: 

-Long grain rice, lime juice, cilantro, salt and pepper.

-Basically, you cook the rice, then add the remaining ingredients, and stir to combine.

Savory Black Beans: 

-1 can black beans, extra virgin olive oil, diced red onions (or shallots), chopped garlic, smoked paprika, salt and pepper

-in a skillet, heat the olive oil

-add onions and garlic and cook for 1 minute

-add drained, rinse black beans

-season with paprika, salt and pepper

-cook until heated through, about 3-5 minutes