New Year eats

New year, new you! [JK] Same oats, same me. With nectarine chia jam on top. This was actually the last breakfast of 2018. We had no plans on the 31st, but then we wound up at a friends’ house for a “noon year party”, which I’d never heard of, but is apparently a thing. It was great! The kids ate chili and we came home after doing a fake countdown at noon. There were beads and blowers involved too, so you know it was a hit.

I wanted to make a “fancy” dinner since we weren’t going out or anything, so I got some filet mignon.

On the side, I made green bean casserole using Danielle Walker’s recipe from her Celebrations cookbook.

I made the sauce and assembled it a day in advance, but baked it that evening.

As you can see, my attempt at frying shallots went GREAT.

Not.

Frying shallots is like toasting nuts. Something you SHOULD NOT MULTI-TASK. I feel like I make that same mistake on a monthly basis.

I followed Gina’s technique for cooking the filet mignon and it turned out great (started in the pan and then once seared on both sides, transferred to the oven to finish cooking).

Kyle actually liked the burnt-to-a-crisp shallots! The green beans were pretty awesome swimming in a creamy cashew sauce. The sauce had mushrooms and shallots too, and yet both kids licked their plates clean.

The sunchokes were also AMAAAAZING and might be my new favorite veggie that I never would have discovered had I not joined imperfect produce. I have been considering making it weekly instead of monthly, but I’m still on the wait list for the UC Davis student farm CSA so I don’t want to end up buried in vegetables all Winter (although I suppose there are worse things…).

I rang in the New Year with See’s candy and part of a chuao chocolate bar. Boo yah. Happy 2019. Sorry about the boo yah.

Here’s some of that roasted butternut squash in a nice lil salad. It had kale massaged in Thai dressing, avo, squash, almonds, and coconut flakes.

We had such a chill January 1st. No plans whatsoever. I don’t even think I left the house aside from a run in the morning.

In honor of Kyle’s southern roots and New Year superstitions, I made a dish with black eyed peas to set us up for a prosperous 2019.

I gave Kyle three options from the Dinner Illustrated cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen. I have renewed it three times from the library so I think I’m going to have to return it soon. 🙁 I’ve made a handful of meals from it and they have all been SO good that I am contemplating buying it. But we JUST had Christmas so it feels ridiculous to buy myself something. Maybe I’ll just return it and check it out again? Anyway!

Kyle picked this recipe because it sounded super different. And I definitely agreed – who would think that combining pomegranate, beans, walnuts, and herbs would be good? It’s not something I’d come up with on my own, that’s for sure.

This was my first time using pomegranate molasses and WOW. I licked a bit off my fingers and it is goooood stuff. I bought a bottle back when Kyle gave me Ottolenghi because it’s, like, his favorite ingredient ever. And yet I have still never used it, despite making several of his recipes. The time finally arrived! The molasses was in both the dressing for the salad and in the rub for the fish.

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In case you too are skeptical of these things coming together nicely, let me remind you of one key thing. This was an ATK recipe. Never doubt the geniuses of America’s Test Kitchen.

Here goes nothing!

P.S. I. Love. Salmon.

So, does it look like the photo in the book? I think so! And how did it taste?

Great! So great, that the kids ate it all – including the green onions and parsley (!) – and then asked for more. And when I said it was all gone, they were so sad, and made me promise to buy black eyed peas again soon. So I’d say that’s a sign of a great dish.

And then it was time for dessert. Thanks again for the Lake Champlain chocolate, neighbor Bill.

Poor Santa has GI issues too. 😛

Yum yum yum yum. Told you there were no dessert related resolutions in my future.

I couldn’t actually come up with any concrete resolution as Kyle and I talked about it, but I figured I’d just carry on with my efforts to reduce my waste and eliminate plastic from our home as best I can. And get a babysitter. Well, that’s technically Kyle’s resolution, but he wants it for me since he will be traveling a bunch in Spring and wants to make sure I have back up. I’m going to do it because I have to do it. We need the option of having a person who the kids feel comfortable with that isn’t my parents (who don’t live close enough to help on a reg basis).

I had my first golden milk latte at a coffee shop last week and fell in love, so I found the same brand at the co-op and have been making them for myself ever since. It’s so easy and so delicious. I use coconut milk and stevia and it’s divine. I’ve actually been drinking them instead of decaf coffee, if you can believe it.

Same salad as the day before.

And for dinner, another meal from ATK’s Dinner Illustrated.

I’d ben eyeing this smoked trout dish from day one of flipping through the book, but only just got around to making it. The reason being that the recipe has pepperoncinis in the salad and uses the brine in the dressing and since Kyle won’t come within 10 feet of anything pickled I had to figure out a way to adapt it for us all.

In the end, I just swapped fresh squeezed lemon juice for his and the kids’ portions, and then used the brine and pickled peppers in my portion alone.

I salso swapped in millet for the couscous.

It was yet another smash hit. I love love loved the pickled salty flavor and thought millet worked perfectly with the dish. It was pretty easy to make too, considering the smoked fish was already done. All I had to do was make sure I got all the tiny bones out of it when I was flaking it. I might add some kind of nut or seed if making it again, for a crunch factor, but really it was great as is.

Dessert du jour (the first course).

Look at this cheeser.

P had gymnastics camp so V and I had the day to ourselves. I was contemplating taking her to stroller strides but I wasn’t really in the mood to freeze my butt off exercising outside, so I did a Nike+ workout in the morning and then played dolls with her until lunch time.

As a special treat we made pizza for lunch. It was also my sneaky way of getting her to come to the grocery store with me to get a few essentials. She chose mushrooms, bell peppers, and pepperoni for her pizza.

Looks pretty gourmet, no?

She snacked on so many mushrooms and bell peppers while making the pizza that she only had half the finished pie, which is the most amazing thing ever considering how much my girl loves pizza.

I ate lunch once she was napping and had to show off these new crackers that Santa got me. They are my new favorite.

I had way more than shown (of course) with smoked salmon, Green Valley organic lactose free cream cheese, and carrots. SO GOOD.

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For dinner I pulled walnut pistachio pesto out of the freezer and added it to gnocchi, sautéed zucchini, and chickpeas.

I put a little pesto in the kids’ bowls wondering what they’d think. At one point (years ago) they were both super into basil, but this past summer they both kinda got over it. I’m not sure what happened but, against my better judgement, I stopped even trying because I didn’t want to deal with the fight. Not today! I added pesto and neither kid said anything and ate it all up.

Obviously I added way more pesto to our bowls though.

It was so nutty and rich it didn’t even need cheese or anything else on top.