Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

Four Days In

The “no eating out” thing is going well so far, no thanks to me.  I tried to convince the Timsy Tee to go out for supper on Friday night.  It just seemed wrong to stay at home on a Friday night!  He held firm, however, good man that he is, and we had a great supper at home.

I tried a few new recipes this week.  Here is a rundown:

Roasted Eggplant Stacks – This recipe actually turned out pretty tasty!  It was the first time I have cooked with eggplant.  Next time I think I will remove the skin before cooking the slices, as they were really tough.  I ended up cutting the skins off after the slices were cooked, and that was a hot, messy job.  I also found that fresh eggplant is very spongelike.  I poured olive oil (Tim is not a big fan of coconut oil, so I used olive oil instead) over all the slices and went back to rub it in, but it was all soaked in already!  You have to pour and spread each one individually.   I also put a fried egg (fried in copious amounts of ghee) on top instead of a poached egg, and that was delicious.  I did have a lot of eggplant leftover, however.  I wasn’t sure what to do with it.  It did not look very appetizing the next day.  I’m not sure I would make this recipe again, for that reason.

Too Easy Chicken Adobo – This recipe turned out OK.  I think I overcooked the chicken a bit.  It seemed dry.  I also used chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs (because that’s what I had in stock), so I’m sure that contributed to the dryness.  At $7/lb for chicken breasts, I was a little disappointed.  That’s crazy expensive for chicken.  I went to the Farmers Market yesterday and got a whole chicken instead of the breast, and that was only $2.50/lb!  Another thing – you cook this recipe with onions, and for some reason I do not like the smell of onions cooking in a sauce.  Overall, the chicken turned out good, and we ate it all, but I don’t think I would make this again.

Sweet Potato Salad – Again, I had to modify this recipe.  I have never seen purple Okinawan potatoes here in Davenport, IA, so I used regular old sweet potatoes.  I added in all the fixings he mentioned (jalapenos, pickles and green onions instead of chives), and it turned out delicious!  I struggled with the homemade mayo though.  I swear I’ve read you can make mayo in the food processor, so I tried it.  I added everything to the processor, less the oil, and then used the oil drizzler topper to pour in the oil.  I didn’t let the egg yolk come completely to room temperature, so that may have affected it too, but the mayo just wouldn’t thicken up!  I poured the whole, ultra-liquidy mess into a container and whisked the heck out of it, but I think it was too late.  It tasted OK, however, so I added it to the potato salad, and once it was in there, you couldn’t tell there was anything wrong with it.  I used 1/2 a cup of olive oil and 1/4 cup of avocado oil.  I didn’t have any dijon mustard, so I used a little Boetjes.  I have a lot of oil left over though, which is the issue with making homemade mayo – it only lasts about 3 days.  Maybe I’ll make egg salad for lunch with it today.  Anyway, this salad was delicious, and I’ll definitely make it again.

Grilled Eggs with Mexican Chorizo – To use an overused meme, NOM NOM!!  I had no idea that it is so easy to make your own chorizo!  This recipe turned out fantastic.  I have a huge bag of ancho chiles from my foray into carnitas territory, so I was all set on that front.  The chorizo turned out super tasty.  We are actually going to have the leftovers with eggs and avocado for breakfast this morning.  It was stormy, so we didn’t want to grill.  Instead, we turned on the Nesco roaster at 400 degrees, let it heat up, and then cooked the peppers/eggs/chorizo for about 13 minutes.  The peppers were perfectly cooked.  I would definitely make this again.  However, I cut the entire stem out of the peppers this time; whereas, next time I will leave it in, just cutting out the white parts of the ribs.  My eggs kept wanting to slide out the ends!

Overall, it was a good week for new recipes.  It am proud that we ate delicious food at home instead of mysterious food out.  This morning I need to make my list for next week, so we can keep up the momentum.  I hit up the Farmers Market yesterday and got a whole chicken, pork chops, 3 dozen eggs, kale, nectarines, and cherries, and we still have ground pork and beef in the freezer, so we are pretty well stocked.

Hope you had a great week too!

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