Menu: Jan. 28-Feb. 3
Hi again and welcome back! Is it February yet? Cause January and I are DONE. It's been like a never-ending month. I have been looking at the calendar and saying "not another week!?!"
Sunday: BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad
Monday: Chicken with Oriental Sauce, edamame, rice
Tuesday: Pork Tenderloin Provencal, rainbow chard, black-eyed peas
Wednesday: out
Thursday: Spicy Basil Chicken, brown rice, sauteed bell peppers
Friday: out
Saturday: take-out tandoor chicken and samosas, Spicy Peas Sauteed with Ginger, naan bread
I realized that I had been making menus lately only from my file of magazine clippings and web sites, but not really from my cookbooks. I am not a cookbook hoarder but I do have a few tried and true favorites on my shelves. This menu has dishes from three very different cookbooks.
Back in the mid 1990s one of the hot restaurant chains was California Pizza Kitchen. I worked in a bookstore briefly in 1994-95 and one day while stocking the shelves, I opened a box of new titles to reveal: The California Pizza Kitchen Cookbook. OMG I was so stoked!! I bought a copy that night and went to work making crazy pizzas. CPK is pretty ordinary these days, but I liked them enough to buy the follow-up book, California Pizza Kitchen Pasta, Salads, Soups and Sides. Monday's salad is from this book; it's sort of a taco salad with BBQ chicken breast instead of taco meat. I cheated and just bought mixed baby greens instead of chopping romaine and iceberg so I guess mine wasn't really a "chopped" salad, whatever, Food Police. BTW: the Kung Pao Spaghetti recipe in this book is AWESOME. Tastes way better than it does in the actual restaurants.
While we are strolling down memory lane, the first cookbook I ever bought (at an independent bookstore, no less) was Nathalie Dupree Cooks for Family and Friends. Nathalie is a fixture of Southern cooking and has won James Beard awards, so she is the real deal. I watched episodes of her companion TV show on PBS back in the day; you can see some of them here. The spine of my copy of this book is broken from use. But this is an old-school cookbook--not a single photograph! Very different than cookbooks today.
All of that to say: this recipe for Chicken with Oriental Sauce was not as good as I remembered. It's basically wing sauce but I cooked boneless thighs instead. The tomato-based sauce seemed too thick and tangy to me. I promise to give you another recipe from this book that I have made more often and can really vouch for. Such as the lasagna....Mmmmm.
As I have mentioned before, I really am bothered by leftovers and can become consumed with how to use them up. There was a large amount of leftover black-eyed peas from a week or so ago (kept in the freezer) and I didn't want them to go to waste. I knew pork would go well with them, and maybe a different green? I couldn't face the idea of any more BBQ sauce so I went straight to Fine Cooking again and found a perfect recipe: Pork Tenderloin Provencal. It was a big hit with my family and so easy to make! Publix actually had the most perfect bunch of rainbow chard that I had ever seen in the produce section so I snatched it up to serve as the green veggie side dish. Behold!
I mean, just look at it. The colorful stems! The perfect leaves, not a bruised or torn one in the bunch! Cudos to the grower.
Thursday's dinner needs to be a quick one to prep and cook because I want to ride my bike after work and I will be home a bit late. I have had the recipe for Spicy Basil Chicken in my clipping file forever, and I am finally going to give it a try. Sounds easy enough; saute the chicken then add a simple sauce and a bunch of basil. Regular brown rice takes a long time to cook but I often will make it in the morning before work, or late at night, and then reheat it for our meal. Instant brown rice is not my favorite but if you like it, hey! I'm OK, you're OK!
After a break it's time for some more Indian food, yay! I think I will take the easy route and get some tandoor chicken from our favorite restaurant and serve it alongside Spicy Peas Sauteed with Ginger, from another cookbook in my collection: Indian Home Cooking by Suvir Saran. Y'all need to get this book now, I love it so much. Suvir makes Indian cuisine so accessible to a home cook like me. His peas cooked with cumin makes a perfect easy and flavorful side dish. This dish uses whole cumin seeds that are toasted and then ground, and a shit ton of ginger along with additional spices to flavor everyday frozen peas.
And that's it for this week! Thanks for visiting and hope you have many enjoyable dinners.
Sunday: BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad
Monday: Chicken with Oriental Sauce, edamame, rice
Tuesday: Pork Tenderloin Provencal, rainbow chard, black-eyed peas
Wednesday: out
Thursday: Spicy Basil Chicken, brown rice, sauteed bell peppers
Friday: out
Saturday: take-out tandoor chicken and samosas, Spicy Peas Sauteed with Ginger, naan bread
I realized that I had been making menus lately only from my file of magazine clippings and web sites, but not really from my cookbooks. I am not a cookbook hoarder but I do have a few tried and true favorites on my shelves. This menu has dishes from three very different cookbooks.
Back in the mid 1990s one of the hot restaurant chains was California Pizza Kitchen. I worked in a bookstore briefly in 1994-95 and one day while stocking the shelves, I opened a box of new titles to reveal: The California Pizza Kitchen Cookbook. OMG I was so stoked!! I bought a copy that night and went to work making crazy pizzas. CPK is pretty ordinary these days, but I liked them enough to buy the follow-up book, California Pizza Kitchen Pasta, Salads, Soups and Sides. Monday's salad is from this book; it's sort of a taco salad with BBQ chicken breast instead of taco meat. I cheated and just bought mixed baby greens instead of chopping romaine and iceberg so I guess mine wasn't really a "chopped" salad, whatever, Food Police. BTW: the Kung Pao Spaghetti recipe in this book is AWESOME. Tastes way better than it does in the actual restaurants.
While we are strolling down memory lane, the first cookbook I ever bought (at an independent bookstore, no less) was Nathalie Dupree Cooks for Family and Friends. Nathalie is a fixture of Southern cooking and has won James Beard awards, so she is the real deal. I watched episodes of her companion TV show on PBS back in the day; you can see some of them here. The spine of my copy of this book is broken from use. But this is an old-school cookbook--not a single photograph! Very different than cookbooks today.
All of that to say: this recipe for Chicken with Oriental Sauce was not as good as I remembered. It's basically wing sauce but I cooked boneless thighs instead. The tomato-based sauce seemed too thick and tangy to me. I promise to give you another recipe from this book that I have made more often and can really vouch for. Such as the lasagna....Mmmmm.
As I have mentioned before, I really am bothered by leftovers and can become consumed with how to use them up. There was a large amount of leftover black-eyed peas from a week or so ago (kept in the freezer) and I didn't want them to go to waste. I knew pork would go well with them, and maybe a different green? I couldn't face the idea of any more BBQ sauce so I went straight to Fine Cooking again and found a perfect recipe: Pork Tenderloin Provencal. It was a big hit with my family and so easy to make! Publix actually had the most perfect bunch of rainbow chard that I had ever seen in the produce section so I snatched it up to serve as the green veggie side dish. Behold!
Thursday's dinner needs to be a quick one to prep and cook because I want to ride my bike after work and I will be home a bit late. I have had the recipe for Spicy Basil Chicken in my clipping file forever, and I am finally going to give it a try. Sounds easy enough; saute the chicken then add a simple sauce and a bunch of basil. Regular brown rice takes a long time to cook but I often will make it in the morning before work, or late at night, and then reheat it for our meal. Instant brown rice is not my favorite but if you like it, hey! I'm OK, you're OK!
After a break it's time for some more Indian food, yay! I think I will take the easy route and get some tandoor chicken from our favorite restaurant and serve it alongside Spicy Peas Sauteed with Ginger, from another cookbook in my collection: Indian Home Cooking by Suvir Saran. Y'all need to get this book now, I love it so much. Suvir makes Indian cuisine so accessible to a home cook like me. His peas cooked with cumin makes a perfect easy and flavorful side dish. This dish uses whole cumin seeds that are toasted and then ground, and a shit ton of ginger along with additional spices to flavor everyday frozen peas.
And that's it for this week! Thanks for visiting and hope you have many enjoyable dinners.
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