The weekly menu

We had some good ass eats this week, if I do say so myself!

I made this sumac salmon dish for my family’s cookbook club (finally getting that back up in action after some time off – mostly due to my pregnancy and postpartum slacking).

I assembled and marinated it all and Kyle grilled it.  The fish was from Costco and after dividing up the remaining 3/4 that we bought, I vacuum pack sealed it and froze it.  Such a good deal.  The sumac is from a fancy shmancy spice store in LA and was a gift from when I went to tour the Sabra facilities a couple years ago.  This was (embarrassingly) my first time trying it.  Trying to branch out lately.

Here’s the recipe for the grilled salmon with sumac oil and green onion yogurt and here’s the recipe for the grilled potato, bacon and onion skewers.  Both recipes are from Sunset magazine (I spied them while browsing the mag at my parents’ house last weekend).  I cannot recommend them enough.  They aren’t super quick, but they aren’t super complicated.  Good weekend recipes for hanging out and grilling in the sunny summer weather.

The green onions get grilled too and then chopped up into the yogurt sauce.  The yogurt sauce is the star of the show so don’t skip that part of it.  I used 2% because it’s impossible to find full fat these days.  Either way use a fatty thick one.

P ate both the fish and skewers!  Ok, not all the potato portion, but still, he ate the onions and some of the potato (he normally despises potatoes).  The fact that he ate the fish and bacon are, of course, not at all surprising.  My kid’s palate is $$$$.

Very filling meal.

 

Meatless Monday again!

Ok, so I didn’t actually photograph much with this one because we ate it at the end of the year picnic for Patty-cake’s “school” which meant we ate out of tupperware.

Not super photogenic.  But oh so good.

I got the recipe for this Black-Eyed Pea salad with peaches and pecans from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook (by America’s Test Kitchen).  Only I swapped pecans for sunflower seeds to make it allergen friendly.

This was the first time P has tried black eyed peas and like everything else new, he was semi-resistant at first, but then decided they were good after me forcing him to “just try one”.  He is hilarious.  He refuses and refuses and then tries one, and then refuses and refuses a few more times, and then asks for one, and then asks for more.  It’s such a predictable cycle.

I prepped the salad in advance and kept the dressing separate (so it wouldn’t get soggy and in case P decided he wanted some of the salad too).  For that reason, I blended the jalapeño into the dressing (rather than chopping it loosely and tossing in the salad) so I could give him jalapeño free bites.

My hands are so sensitive I decided to glove it up for the jalapeño de-seeding and chopping.  I know, I’m a wuss.  Sterile technique!

It’s been a while since I’ve had black eyed peas but they are great.  And pair really well with peaches and seeds and a bright citrus vinaigrette dressing (it had lime juice and zest).  I’m loving my new veg cookbook.  🙂

On Tuesday I made up another chicken bake recipe (the all in one dinners are so perfect for our late soccer nights).  This was a little on the dry side because I overcompensated after the last one was too liquidy.  I have adjusted the recipe below to account for it though (doubling the amount of tomatoes called for).

In case you were wondering, hominy is delicious.  I’m kinda obsessed. The texture is what I love about it most.  It’s like a chewy corn-y rice-y chunk.  Sold yet?  Ha!

Spicy hominy and rice chicken bake [gluten free, dairy free, soy free, nut free]

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken breasts
• 3/4 cup rice
• 3-4 chipotle peppers, diced (from can with adobo sauce)
• 1 25 oz can hominy
• 1 28 oz can diced tomatoes*
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• salt (to taste)

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease a large baking dish and pour in drained hominy and (uncooked) rice.

Add chipotle peppers and then place chicken breasts on top.

Sprinkle spices on top, then pour on tomatoes, dispersing evenly around the ingredients.

Cover with foil and bake for 35-40 minutes.

As you can see, this isn’t a terribly complicated recipe so no need to fuss with it.  Just dump things in and cover and cook.

Delicious!

Kyle loved the flavor profile of this one (as did I), but I thought the chicken was a bit dry and some of the rice was slightly al dente.  Like I said, I adjusted the recipe to account for this, so do what is noted above.  Also, feel free to add in as much adobo sauce from the chipotle peppers as you want.  That stuff has flavor like whoa.

I meant for this to be a family dish but I royally screwed up by adding the chipotles because the adobo sauce has sesame oil in it (to which he is allergic).  I didn’t even think about it, but since I was using the leftovers from a previous recipe they weren’t in the original container (see the glass jar pictured above).  I googled like crazy to find a photo of the label so I could see the exact ingredients in it.  It was not an easy task and I ended up finding different labels – one that was just vinegar and spices (which would be safe), one with sesame oil, and another with soybean oil.  Unsure of which I had, I just offered him other stuff instead.

Which was a bummer because we totally had extra and he wanted to try ours.  Sigh.

I bet he’d like hominy too.  Next time!

Wednesday was a wing-it day because the weather was supposed to be weird (rainy) and I didn’t know if we’d go to market or not. We ended up not going and then Kyle had a concert that night which he left early for, so we didn’t eat the same things and all I took a photo of was my random dinner.

I knew I wanted kale.  And I knew I wanted a vegetarian meal.  And I had just seen a really good looking salad in Bon Appetit that used nuts, avocado, and feta…sooo…I kinda went in that direction.

First, I massaged kale and broccoli slaw in olive oil, then on the side I made a salad of cucumber, feta, avocado, dried cranberries, and pistachios.  I planned to make the cucumber salad big so the extra could be part of my lunch the next day but I ended up eating the whole thing.  Oops.  It was really good.  🙂  That’s what happens when you pair salty goat feta (Redwood Hill has the BEST artisanal goat cheeses) with sweet cranberries, crunchy cucumber, and pistachios.

Thursday felt like Friday (sadly it was not).  I had planned a sautéed kale and white bean dish but wasn’t really feeling it that afternoon.  I also had an MD appt at 4:30 (so that Kyle could come home early to watch the kids) which meant I should make something in advance…but I didn’t really feel like doing that either.  So I winged it.

Before I left for the appt I massaged some kale and broccoli slaw in olive oil and pulled salmon (vacuum sealed in the freezer from that Costco trip) to thaw.

When I got home, I put a plate together for P and then fired off the salmon.  I went in an Asian direction with dinner so I gave the little guy leftover chicken, kale, broccoli slaw (which he calls crunchy noodles), rice with avocado, and cucumbers.

I have been craving (and eating) kale like crazy this week.  I have had kale salads for lunch every day.  And for two back to back dinners too.

Salmon and kale.  Mmmm…

The fish was sautéed in olive oil and tamari.  The salad had massaged kale and broccoli slaw plus shredded coconut and sunflower seeds.  And more tamari and pepper on top.

Happy dance.

We had an early dinner on Friday so Kyle could hit the road at a reasonable hour…off to Tahoe for a wedding.  I figured little al fresco nibbles were a good call for such a meal, but it was boiling hot outside so it was eaten adentro instead.

On the menu: strawberries, dates wrapped in prosciutto, smoked salmon, (unpictured) crackers, mesquite almonds, and carrots.

More salmon!?!  I didn’t realize how much I had until writing this post.  Geez.

Basically one big salt fest.  But soooo good.

P had prosciutto for the first time and liked it (big shocker there).  He also had dates for the first time.  And LOOOOVED them.  Strawberries and plums are still the summer fling for him though.

Kyle gets back sometime Sunday and P has requested BBQ chicken tonight so wish me luck in my first solo grilling adventure!!!