Stay Home and Cook: Cranking Out the Cuisine (Week Eight)

Now that we’re eight full weeks into this quarantine and the rhythm is fairly set, we’re truly covering every angle each week with our meals. Conveniently, this past week included Cinco de Mayo which meant tacos were a necessity and my constant search for the best version of “balance”’continued!

When the most exciting part of your day is dinnertime (#truth), you try to be as creative as possible. But you must also face reality: sometimes dinner needs to be easy and the quickest, ever. This past week seemed to run the gamut from extra-involved to barely cooking so I think we’re on the same level as everyone else. Who else misses going to their favorite restaurant on Friday night? I do!

For now, let’s focus on the positive (all the great cooking we’re all doing at home) and eventually, when it’s truly safe, we will all get to visit our favorite spots.

Teriyaki Grilled Chicken and Arugula Salad

Original Creation

As the weather warms up it’s a good time to break out, once again, the grill! Now, if you don’t have an outdoor grill, then don’t worry. A grill pan on the stovetop is an excellent alternative. Seth bought a small, electric grill for us last summer and while we don’t use it daily, it’s so nice to have it (read: our smoke alarm doesn’t go off!) available for dinners during the warmer months.

No surprise here, our first meal made on the grill this year was chicken. Easy! We made a teriyaki-esque marinade to amp up the flavor and boy did it work. I’d recommend letting your protein marinate for around an hour before cooking; the flavors really had time to sink in.

For this particular dinner, we leaned toward the healthy and served the grilled chicken over a simple arugula salad (again, easy). We included avocado on the side because everyone loves avocado and it went well with the teriyaki-flavor of the meal.

Finally, since I was nervous our meal wasn’t “enough” I decided to add our favorite frozen (!) food: Feel Good Foods Vegetable Egg Rolls. Oh, they are so delicious! And an excellent addition to your favorite salad-for-dinner. Make sure to whip up a spicy aioli dipping sauce. ;)

Admittedly, I’ll have these egg rolls for lunch on their own. Or even as a minimalist dinner. But for this instance they were the perfect addition to make our chicken-and-salad meal complete. :)

Slow Cooker Chipotle-Honey Chicken Tacos

Recipe for tacos via NYT Cooking. Recipe for tortillas is right here.

It was Taco Tuesday and Cinco de Mayo on the same day! Wow. Despite not being able to go out for this double delight of a day, we opted for the next best thing: making tacos at home! We found a scrumptious recipe for chicken tacos online and decided to make GF flour tortillas from scratch to really make the meal special.

Slow-cookers are incredibly convenient for making a large portion of taco meat (protein of your choosing) since we barely had any work to do by the time we were ready to eat. These chicken tacos were scrumptious; the chipotle-honey flavor was not overly spicy and was even more awesome when topped with quick-pickled onions and avocado.

I’ll admit that the flavor of the chicken wasn’t as bold as I’d hoped, but it was still delicious. It grew on me over time as the leftovers were quite yummy. Yes, tacos are fantastic, but next-day tacos are even better. ;)

If you have time, then I strongly suggest making your own tortillas for special taco nights. It’s not a difficult process and the quality is far better than store-bought (although we keep pre-made in the freezer just in case).

These GF flour tortillas (use gluten free flour) had wonderful flavor and a nice, soft texture that was perfect for tacos. One batch made eight tortillas which is plenty for two people or just enough for three or four people. Just depends on how hungry you are and how many tacos you (and everyone else) will inevitably want to eat. Listen to me: you will want to eat a lot of tacos.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Yogurt and Crispy Chickpeas

Original Creation

When in doubt, roast a sweet potato and top it with some goodness. And yogurt. If you’re looking for a super-simple meatless meal, then look no further. We have made variations on a “stuffed sweet potato” many times before and for good reason: it’s delicious! It’s easy! It’s filling! What more do you need from dinner?

This iteration featured a great, Greek yogurt sauce as the base on the potato which we then topped with crispy, pan-fried chickpeas and mushrooms, and finished it off with fresh cilantro and a sprinkle of sea salt. No fancy ingredients, no exciting techniques, just good flavors layered together. A mighty meal!

If you’re curious, the yogurt sauce is one cup of Greek yogurt, plus fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper, and a little drizzle of olive oil. The amounts vary on your taste preferences - not a fan of pepper? Skip it. No need for the olive oil? Just leave it out (although I recommend keeping it in). This yogurt sauce is great for these roasted potatoes, but it’s also just good for dipping veggies, meatballs, anything. It’s versatile!

The key to making crispy chickpeas is to make sure the pan isn’t too hot and to stir periodically; they take some time, bu they’re absurdly worth it. Chickpeas are one of the best non-meat proteins, in my opinion. Do yourself a favor and incorporate them into your dinners at least once a week.

We should all be doing our part to eat less meat and one of the easiest ways to do that is by choosing chickpeas as the primary protein. :)

Korean Green Onion Pancakes

Recipe from The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen by Laura Russell

What do you see here? Another meatless meal! We’re trying our best to have a few meatless dishes each week and this one was extra-special. I have not eaten a scallion pancake since going gluten free in 2013 (!!) so this was a real treat. Why had we not made these sooner? I have no idea and there is no good excuse.

Compared to the more common, dough-based scallion pancake, these green onion ones were made from a pancake-like batter, but still yielded a delicious, final product. The edges were crisp, the center slightly soft, but all-around excellent. We prepared a simple dipping sauce to go alongside (GF soy sauce, chili garlic, scallions).

Admittedly, this recipe was very quick and we had lost patience for prepping a dough by the time we decided to make them. However, the quickness was a real benefit because we were enjoying them shortly after preparing the batter and eating them in rounds at the kitchen counter was pretty fun. It was - almost - like eating at the bar of a restaurant. If the bar had no chairs and there was only one item on the menu. And restaurant’s cat tried to steal a bite.

Many of my favorite, low-key meals are eaten in the corner of the kitchen, huddled over a plate of something delicious. Try it! So what if you end up with crumbs all over the floor; you’re home the rest of the night. You can clean it up later. :)

Pasta and Meatballs

Recipe by Nigella Lawson for NYT Cooking

For all of my talk of meatless meals, there comes a time when you just need to eat a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. Man, this was an intense craving by the time Friday night rolled around. I was thrilled when we confirmed all of the required ingredients were in the pantry. Divine dinner, entirely possible.

The best part of this dinner was eating all of it in one, too-big-bite on my fork. I loved the flavor of meatball/spaghetti/sauce all at once and I didn’t care that I made a giant mess in the process. Spaghetti and meatballs is major comfort food and by the end of the week all we want is something extra awesome and supremely delicious.

If you’re curious, we made this meal using Jovial Foods gluten free capellini pasta, which is our go-to pasta brand. We made the meatballs gluten free by using Aleia’s gluten free Italian breadcrumbs. See? It’s very easy to make comfort food gluten free.

May is Celiac Disease Awareness Month and nothing brings me greater joy than sharing how easy it is to make everyone’s favorite foods (safely) gluten free. :)

The Veggie Pizza

Original Creation, Crust by Ugly’s Gluten Free Bakery

We brought back pizza night on Saturday and made a really excellent, all-veggie pie. I’ll say this again because perhaps you missed my weeks-earlier declaration: veggie pizza is possibly my favorite pizza. I’m as shocked as you.

I was a pepperoni pie type of girl for decades (yes, I’m almost 35), but I’m taking pride in my new style. Yes, I agree a meat-covered pizza is delicious, but I’m far more particular about the type of meat I choose for my pizza these days (sausage is my pick right now).

Beyond my wild declaration (or normal, take your pick), I fully support veggie pizza lovers everywhere. We topped this one with a lot of mozzarella (duh), sautéed mushrooms (crucial), chopped tomatoes, red onion, fresh garlic, and broccoli. Yes, broccoli. My usual nemesis is actually pretty great on pizza. Perhaps it’s because the pieces are small and get nicely browned or because the flavor is masked by everything else around it. Either way, broccoli is A-OK on pizza for me.

Finally, I’ll reiterate that it’s great to use a pizza stone for cooking the pizza in the oven. Using the stone allows the crust to get perfectly crisp and the center of the pie is no longer “squishy.” If you’re on the hunt for a quarantine gift (let’s make this a thing) for yourself, then I suggest a pizza stone. Make restaurant-quality pizza…at home!

Sheet Pan Broccoli and Potatoes

Original Creation due to “clean out the fridge” night.

Sunday night sometimes lends itself to elaborate, amazing meals. And sometimes it’s difficult to do anything other than throw a bunch of veggies on a pan and throw it (carefully) into the oven. This Sunday required the latter and while it wasn’t exciting, it worked. It was dinner!

We tossed broccoli, russet potatoes, and garlic cloves with olive oil, salt, pepper, and some cajun seasoning, then arranged it on a sheet pan and baked at 425 for around forty minutes. Because that wasn’t too thrilling, we made chickpeas to go on top. See? Another meatless meal that used chickpeas as the protein. Convenient and easy.

Dinner isn’t always glamorous or beautiful; sometimes it’s just a meal that you need to eat! Sunday’s sheet-pan dinner was very simple and not exactly fun, but it served its purpose quite well. The chickpeas were a great topping and I was happy to eat the leftovers for a salty snack the next day. A silver-lining to an otherwise uneventful meal. :)

As always, please leave us a comment with any questions you may have about our dinners.

Enjoy, be safe, and stay home.

Mollie and Seth