Fall Dinner Queue

Here is our Fall Dinner Queue, a list of meals for us to pick from when planning out the week's meals. I used Kendra's Decide Once principle to choose the veggie that goes along with each main so it doesn't have to be something we have to come up with each time. 

Comment below with your favorite fall crowd pleasers! 

Asian-ish

• pork egg omelette + cauli
• chicken pho + broccoli
• beef pho + kale
• thit kho + mustard greens
• xuxu soup
• butter chicken + cauli
• viet coconut curry
• spring rolls (shrimp, cha lua, or chk) / bun bowls (rotisserie chk or bulgogi)
• baked salmon + green beans
• baked kalbi chicken + salad
• bulgogi + kale
• mapo tofu + cauli
• hainanese chicken + cuke
• oxtail soup + kale
• kalua pork + cabbage
• larb
• bo kho
• seaweed soup w/ ground beef
• pork shrimp meaballs
• tilapia with ginger, green onions, cilantro
• peruvian steak

American

• cabbage patch soup
• spaghetti
• ham + beans
• burgers
• sheet pan chicken
• Sunday Night Stew
• pork chops + kale
• baked potatoes + broccoli
• nachos
• brussels sprouts fettucine (I can't find the link; I could have sworn it was on Orangette...)
• Sultze meatloaf + broccoli
• quiche + salad

Stupid easy

• take-out fried chicken (Heaven Sent does GF!) and coleslaw
• Pho Asia
• Costco rotisserie chicken + salad kit
• sandwiches + chips
• frozen pizza

A pumpkin round-up: savory and sweet

Before November is over, let's talk about pumpkin for a little bit because YES PLEASE.

1. Pumpkin chili

This chili is decidedly savory and (big surprise) I love it. It is vegetarian as written but I think it'd go great with meat, which is how I'm going to make it today. Kayla - who brought us the tomato paste freezing tip in a previous post - blends the canned tomatoes before adding them, which definitely takes it to the next level.

I highly recommend doubling the recipe and making jalepeno cheese cornbread muffins to go alongside!

2a. Roasted kabocha salad

Trying out another recipe from Vegetarian that I have had bookmarked (literally, ha) for a while. I always steal the kabocha from the tempura pile; it's absolutely my favorite pumpkin (so starchy!).

2b. Oh wait, this is my favorite pumpkin:

Sweet, savory, and tangy.

4. Pumpkin bread

Kathy loves to reminisce about the pumpkin bread I made six years ago when Kenny helped me cut and roast sugar pumpkins and we made the bread from homemade puree.

(It also didn't hurt that I put chocolate chips in the batter.)

We love using this Orangette recipe, but we cut the sugar in half so we can enjoy putting the (optional?!) chocolate in it. I've written it as a doubled recipe (so you can use up a can of pumpkin, or if not you can make the pumpkin chili, see point number 1 above) so you can do one loaf plain (which a lot of our family loves) and the other with chocolate and/or walnuts. We decided we like chocolate best, no walnuts.

Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips
adapted from Orangette

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1 1/2 t salt
1 T cinnamon
1 t ginger
1 t nutmeg
1/2 t cloves

2/3 c water
1 t vanilla

12 T unsalted butter, at room temp
1 1/4 c sugar {this is halved from Orangette's recipe}

4 large eggs, room temp
2 cup pumpkin puree (if making homemade puree that is thinner in texture than canned pumpkin, you can reduce the water above)

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9x5 loaf pans.

Whisk dry ingredients together.

Beat butter until creamy, about 30 seconds, then add sugar and blend until lightened in color, abut 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time.

Add pumpkin puree, and beat on low speed until just blended.

Add flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the water-vanilla mixture in two parts, beating on low until smooth and just combined.

Fold in chocolate and pour into pans.

Bake for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a rack for five or ten minutes before unmolding to cool completely on the rack.

Friendsgiving 2016

I gotta put together a slap-bang post before Thanksgiving because sometimes done is better than perfect.

Although, perfect is: this beautiful sign that Kayla made for our Friendsgiving last Sunday with all the young families from church.

Less than perfect is: the quality of my pictures. I really need to clean off my phone from grubby hands. (You think I'm talking about my children, but I'm not.) (Although! Emilyn has been doing the cutest thing which is to put her play phone to her ear whenever we say, "Hello?")

The party was a huge success and I wanted to share some of aspects I thought made it so.

It was a potluck, and the Evite "What To Bring" section enabled us to guide people towards covering all the necessary components to a complete spread. 

I divvied food up into smaller "bites," if you will, so that people could pick and choose a couple things together if that was easier than tackling a big item. 

Asking someone to bring cider and a bag of ice guaranteed that our drinks would be cold, even if they wouldn't be refrigerated during church. I also separately requested a 1/2 lb decaf beans to be brought.

I'm learning to delegate, because even when it's a potluck, there can end up being a lot of last minute purchases that add expenses for the host. This way you have margin to splurge on other fun (or necessary) ideas that come up later.

David and I provided the turkey, and since this was a casual gathering, I felt the freedom to not have to present a beautiful (some have called it "stunt") turkey at the table. This would have been really challenging anyway, seeing as the function immediately followed service on Sunday.

So, we roasted the turkey on Friday (since David was off then but had to work on Saturday). I have never before made a turkey in such a relaxed ("not agitated" to be Earnest) manner. It was marvelous.

At 4 o'clock on a relaxed afternoon without any company expected, we got to eat the crispy skin off (ha) and then when it cooled, we sliced and refrigerated the meat to be warmed up in gluten-free (i.e., just corn starch, no flour) gravy in a crock pot on Sunday morning. Crock pot FTW again.

Pro-tip: multi-purposing cups as name cards.

The only other elements of "structure" (I really had to restrain myself here) were a Mad Lib and a brief sharing of everyone's highlight of the year and a challenge of the year.

decorations? activity? "agenda"?

There were four babies in the group that had been born within the last year so the majority of the answers to highlights and challenges was babies. (We laughed when we discovered repeatedly that so many people's "favorite activity" on the Mad Lib was sleeping.)

Kayla was an awesome co-host and I personally had a blast doing this with her. When everyone left (which was late, another good sign), I noticed that I felt so filled up, both literally and figuratively.

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. If you need more, check out our 2014 Thanksgiving or revisit the letter I wrote mysef aboout hosting parties.

Falling for wintery foods

(First of all, what?! Okay, that said...

...) I'm often disappointed with traditional beef stews, finding them too acidic or even tinny tasting, and not beefy enough to boot.

But there is one version that never fails, and that is Ree Drummond's Sunday Night Stew.

Her pictures are way more gorgeous, her sauce more deeply mahogany, probably because I use chicken stock where she uses beef.

My favorite part of this recipe is the turnips - different, but oh so good, a wonderful contrast texturally to the beef.

It also doesn't hurt that Ree serves the stew on top of mashed potatoes that have been whipped with a stick of butter and a carton of cream cheese.

I highly recommend that you allow your rule-following (at least when it comes to recipes) spouse to make the mashed potatoes so that he can use the full amount of fat and you don't have to see how much goes into it to make it so luscious and heavenly.

(And this is why we all willingly fork over our hard-earned paychecks to cafes and bakeries, so we don't have to see all the good bad stuff that goes into everything that tastes amazing.)

Bonus: Pro tip from my friend Kayla is to freeze spoonfuls of tomato paste (because you NEVER need a whole can and it ALWAYS goes to waste) on a sheet pan, par-freeze it, then transfer to a ziplock in the freezer so you always have little dollops of paste when needed. You're welcome.

---

Another meal we tried this week was Winter Albondigas Soup:

And finally...

• Reading 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam. It's surprisingly provocative for me personally, enough so that I might need to do a book report (aka another post) on this. As a teaser, know that I have woken up at 5 a.m. (!) for the last two days and gone walking! (I took advantage of Daylights Savings Time to make this shift.)
• Enjoyed this post on 7 Steps to Internet Sanity
• Appreciated this follow-up article from Stephie to my question about cookbook club.
• Love this quote by Cyril Connolly: "Better to write for yourself and have no public than write for the public and have no self."

Of excess, of gratuity

Gah! I'm falling off the blogging bandwagon. It is SO hard to keep up when I'm not doing it every day. Anyway, I'm here to bring you a cookie recipe from another professed non-baker. That always makes me pay attention.

When it comes to design, I like things either super neutral or the complete opposite: super colorful, all in one piece. I guess you could say both styles match with everything. Same goes with food. I usually like recipes that have few ingredients, where each speaks for itself. I'm not a huge fan of excess, of gratuity. But because I love paradox, I love these cookies, which have what might seem like a lot of mix-ins. Lots of ingredients, lots of things talking at once. And I love it. I hope you will, too.

Gaia Cookies
from Shauna Niequist's Bread and Wine

I made these with mostly dates for the dried fruit portion and loved it. I tried so hard to follow the recipe as-is the first time (so hard for a cook-not-baker), but next time I would increase both the chocolate and the nuts by maybe a 1/4 to 1/2 each. The amount of butter/sugar/flour in the recipe can handle it, I believe.

2 sticks butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 T vanilla (I don't know if this is a typo, but I made it as is and it was not a problem)
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cup oats
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup chopped dates, raisins, dried cherries, or cranberries, or any combination

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.

Mix together dry ingredients through salt, then add to creamed butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the mix-ins.

Briefly chill dough before rolling into balls (or roll the balls and chill the cookie sheet, if you have room in your fridge). Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, until golden. I like to go on the longer side so it can be crispy despite already being chewy from the ingredients (especially if you use dates, as I did).

Call us overachievers

I apologize for the hiatus. We've been really busy over here, having early Thanksgivings both in California and here at home in Seattle.

You could call us overachievers.

This year we experimented with having Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday night. I once overheard a co-worker say that his family did it that way. It seemed brilliant to me - get all the hard work done on a day everyone is working anyway, and then enjoy all of Thursday off, when everyone is home from work and school.

So we tried it this year. Knowing that I would have an almost 11-month old on my hands (and under my feet), I started preparing almost a week in advance.

A new rug I couldn't resist getting to spruce up the place for the holiday. My father-in-law called it Theo's magic carpet.

So last week my friend Karen came over for dinner* and we hashed out menu plans and decorations. I told her that I'm not into the "newfangled stuff" - I love brussels sprouts (not being sarcastic), but in my opinion they do not belong on a Thanksgiving table.

We agreed on a classic menu of turkey, gravy (two boats, just being realistic here), mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, peas, and rolls.

Sketching out which serving dishes I plan to use helps ensure I'm not stressing about it at the last minute.

Karen offered to bring appetizers (spanakopita (!) and eggrolls) as well as Connie's Corn Casserole, which turned out to be the most amazing thing we had ever had. At the table, Kenny dubbed it "corn butter."

"Corn butter" on the bottom right. David generously offered for it to be placed next to him.

With everyone at work/school and a baby who doesn't nap very much anymore, I knew I needed to plan ahead as much as a could, down to the details.

David and I broke down the cleaning and set-up tasks and spread them out over the days before The Dinner. When we finished an item we got to move the post-it note to the back. (Ah!)

This was by no means the complete list.

And I didn't stop there. I also made an Excel spreadsheet. Yes, you heard that right.

I totally nerded out and it was awesome.

Planning ahead allowed me to develop shortcuts that made the day of so easy. Here are the things I would do again next year in a heartbeat, whether or not Thanksgiving was on Wednesday or Thursday or in the middle of November:

• prepare all the vegetables for the stuffing the day before. When I cooked the stuffing, it was like a cooking show as I dumped already chopped veggies into the pan. (BTW, Mom, everyone loved your stuffing recipe.)
• start the stock for gravy and stuffing in a crockpot the night before. David also set the turkey in the roasting pan and in the fridge the night before so all I had to do was pull it out.
• make the mashed potatoes a couple hours before dinner and keep them warm in a crockpot. (Karen lent me hers so I had two to work with.)

Also, next year I'm definitely asking my sister-in-law to bring dessert again. She made the most amazing pumpkin cheesecake ever!

Diana thought she made a mistake and put "too much" sugar in the crust, but we just proclaimed that PAULA DEEN MADE A MISTAKE when writing the recipe and didn't include the amount Diana used.

We had a lovely dinner with way too much laughter. I asked Kenny to serve the mashed potatoes. He kept trying to give people HUGE portions. By the end of the meal, we were calling Kenny a "potato pusher." Karen caught David "trying to go horizontal" after the meal. We ended the evening with drawing names for our gift exchange and sharing what we were thankful for. (Kenny was - you guessed it - thankful for potatoes.)

I called my parents this morning. They were on the road driving somewhere for breakfast, and because my mom and I had hosted our Thanksgiving there two weeks ago, my dad named us the two most relaxed moms on Thanksgiving day.

Karen said it best when she said that having our dinner last night was like "getting our homework done before it's even Saturday."

I'm looking forward to this day lounging with family and eating leftovers. On the menu so far is turkey pho for lunch (!!!) and turkey enchiladas for dinner (!!!!).

My mom got these cute animal placecard holders on a missions trip to Africa.

So I heartily commend to you having Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday nights. 

Happy Thanksgiving all!

_______________________________________

* We had a true Dave Ramsey dinner, beans and rice and torn-in-half napkins. Actually, truth be told, Karen tore off and used the "less used" portion (her words, not mine) of a paper towel David brought back from the hospital cafeteria. I tried not to feel too embarrassed, but in actuality I have to love the shared frugality Karen and I have. 

Safely say

We really did it: a whole week of Mexican food. Caldo de pollo, carne asada tacos, lots of beans and tortillas. 

I even did a copycat of my favorite dish from a local Mexican restaurant. I'm not sure I should call it my favorite dish, because technically, I've never actually ordered it before. As I reached over to pick off of my sister-in-law's plate (on my birthday, I should add), I told my friend Coleen, "This is a dish I feel too guilty ordering, but not too guilty stealing off of someone else's plate."

Pollo ala crema

But aside from all those yummies, I was most surprised and delighted by a simple recipe from Liana Krisoff's Vegetarian for a New Generation. Her chipotle potato tacos were easy to make, full of flavor, and very satisfying (to the belly and the wallet as well).

Purple potatoes from our CSA box

It's actually very economical to eat one type of cuisine for a whole week because you don't waste ingredients. In the past we have thrown away bags of tortillas, wilted (let's be honest, rotted) cilantro (it's the worst), and other such odds and ends. But this week, nothing was for naught. Our Mexican week ended (or has it? Kenny wonders) with homemade tostadas and refried beans.

I can safely say we consumed almost 100 corn tortillas this week.

Can I blame Theo? Actually, this picture was from the summer, when Kathy made flour tortillas from scratch. The recipe is a good one.

At some point I want to tell you about the BEST SHREDDED BEEF TACOS EVER but I think that will have to be a post of its own. So for now, you'll have to be content with potato tacos. (Carbs on carbs is always a good thing.)



Chipotle Potato Tacos
adapated from Liana Krissoff's Vegetarian

I kept calling these "chorizo potato tacos" because "chipotle" and "potato" was such a tongue twister for me. But of course David laughed when I started to tell him, "I really want to make this recipe from the Vegetarian cookbook, these chorizo potato tacos..."

2 large russet potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1 inch cubes
3 T oil
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 t ground cumin
1/2 t Mexican oregano
2-3 T minced canned chipotle peppers*
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
sour cream, for garnish
optional garnishes: cherry tomatoes, queso fresco, limes
corn tortillas

Par-boil potato chunks: cover potatoes with cold water (I added salt) and bring to a boil. Cook for about 10-15 minutes, until just tender.

Heat up 2 T oil in a pan, then add onions and a pinch of salt. Saute until onion is nicely browned. Then add cumin, oregano, garlic, potatoes and last tablespoon of oil. Cook until they are hot and as crispy as you would like them. Finally, stir in chipotle and taste for salt.

Garnish with lots of cilantro and serve with tortillas and sour cream


____________________
* Liana's trick to pre-mince a whole can of those chipotle peppers at once and store them in a glass jar in your fridge is brilliant. Can you imagine how delicious they would be on eggs for breakfast?

The most whimsical thing

Yesterday my friend Chelsey called me last-minute to see if we wanted to join them at The Farm in Snohomish.

I am a homebody to the core and normally do not love to go out, especially at the last minute, but I'm so glad we decided to go.

There were piglets. (!!)

We shared the most delicious apple pie, and overheard some girls talking about xiao long bao. I had a "squirrel moment" and turned around and asked, "Did you just say xiao long bao?" Haha. 

On our way there we drove past a literal (i.e., not-yet-picked) pumpkin patch. The picture below doesn't quite capture it - we were driving - but it was the most whimsical thing I had seen in a long time.

Best of all, we got to take home some pumpkins.

Thanks, Chens! We had a wonderful time with you. :)

Blame the food

As promised, I'm here to tell you about ratatouille.

It's terrible, I know, that I don't have a picture of the final product, but that's mostly because it doesn't last very long on the table.

I'm blaming the ratatouille.

I'm not even going to post the recipe here, because the original is perfect as written. Francis Lam (it's Lam, right?) is a hilarious recipe writer. I once heard someone say that it's like he's standing right there in the kitchen with you.

(Wouldn't we all like our moms to be there while we cook? "How much of [ingredient of choice] should I use-- like, is this enough?)

So check it out.

However, if I were to dare add anything to his perfect recipe, I would say that if you can get your hands on Chinese eggplant, use that instead. 

I also dared to say I would make it with eggplant only-- "I don't care for zucchini or summer squash," I said at the dining table, but then I got a look from one of our guests. I'm an anomaly, I guess, but, if you are weird like me, too, just know that everything - even zucchini - gets an amazing lift when roasted at 450 degrees. 

Yes, I ate a few of them right off the roasting pan, like chips. But in my defense, they do shrink a lot when roasted. (All that evaporation is what concentrates that delicious flavor.) 

That's my excuse, at least. 'Cause it's so much easier to blame food than to take responsibility.

Do we do anything around here other than eat?

Nope. Now, stay away from my bottle.