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Tag Archives: dinner

I make! Blue Apron edition

I’ve been trying out Blue Apron, a subscription…food…delivery…service…?  I don’t actually know how to describe them.  Anyway, you subscribe to their service and they have sent you fresh ingredients for you to make meals according to the week’s menu.  I decided to try it out because sometimes I don’t have time to actually go buy ingredients for myself or I don’t want to figure out my week’s meal plan but still want to cook.  So this works out for me.  Also, they sponsor a whole bunch of podcasts I listen to, so I got a discount.

Anyway, I’ve tried the service out a few times now.  It’s kind of fun.  But probably because I already like to cook.  Their instructions are fairly clear, although I’ve noticed some typos that could potentially be very confusing who doesn’t cook all the time.  And I don’t like how they suggest you salt your food after every step.  That’s a lot of salt.  A. LOT. OF. SALT.  I don’t believe salt/saltiness should be the dominant flavor in most dishes.  I regard that as being lazy and/or cheap.  At full price, it’s comparable to going out to eat if you don’t always eat at fancypants restaurants, so you’re not saving a ton of money.  But at least you know what’s going into your food and the ingredients they send you are good quality.

Thus far, I just receive one box per month, which includes ingredients for two different meals.  I look at the month’s menu beforehand and opt out of the recipes that I could easily make myself or eat/cook a lot already.  I like to try the stuff I wouldn’t normally cook or don’t have the ingredients for.  Here’s what I think thus far.

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Crispy curried catfish with chana masala and brown rice

This was pretty good.  I don’t normally like catfish but it was cleaned well and didn’t have that muddy flavor.  Also, I like chickpeas.  And I forgot to take a picture when I served.  So you have a Tupperware shot.

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Beef stew and cheese mashed potatoes with carrots and thyme

This was kind of normal.  Not bad, it just doesn’t particularly stand out to me.  I make beef stew sometimes already.  I make a Guinness beef stew that I like better than this one.  I also just did a quick search and realized that I never posted about the beef stew.  Oh well.

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Garlic-herb butter shrimp with roasted cauliflower and brown rice

I like shrimp but I REALLY don’t like peeling shrimp.  Thus, I don’t make shrimp that often, which is why I opted in for this box.  It wasn’t bad except that I believe they were using Gulf shrimp, which has a characteristic briney taste that I don’t care for.  I probably wouldn’t make this again.  But it did make me realize that I quite like roasted cauliflower.

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Stir-fried beef and udon noodles with gai lan and Thai basil

I very much like udon and I rarely have it stir-fried.  We normally use udon in noodle soups when we’re too lazy to make our own noodles (I grew up eating hand-pulled noodles, nbd).  This was pretty good because I really like gai lan tsai.  I also find it funny that there’s no English name for it.  I also REALLY like Thai basil.  So, it was hard to find anything wrong with this menu.  I might make it again, but probably not if it’s just for me.

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Seared cod and garlic-ginger rice with Ponzu-glazed broccoli

I like fish a lot.  I probably eat too much fish.  I don’t think very many people can say that.  But I think I really might eat too much fish to the point where I should be concerned about mercury poisoning.  Fun fact.  Anyway, I didn’t much care for this recipe.  The rice was neither garlicky nor gingery enough to warrant calling it garlic-ginger rice.  The cod wasn’t bad.  I like cod.  But I really didn’t like the broccoli, which is weird because it’s one of my favorite vegetables.  I think the Ponzu glaze was too overpowering.

 

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Pork chops and apple mostarda with roasted sweet potato, toasted walnut, and blue cheese salad

I have to say that this is probably my favorite of everything I’ve tried from Blue Apron.  I would definitely make this again.  But, if I were to do it myself, I would use pork tenderloin instead of center cut, cut the salt entirely from the mostarda, and increase the amount of sweet potatoes in the salad.

I make! Thanksgiving dinner edition

Yes, I suppose this would have made more sense to post before Thanksgiving than after.  But I had a nonstandard Thanksgiving this year anyway.  I did have a Thanksgiving dinner with some family friends on Thanksgiving day, but I didn’t make a turkey until just last week.  I’ve been having Thanksgiving related meals for a few weeks now, which is totally fine by me, as Thanksgiving is the only holiday toward which I still have warm feelings.  Maybe because it’s one of the least commercialized holidays.  Yes, there is the black Friday craze and how it really starts weeks before the day after Thanksgiving now.  But the holiday itself, there isn’t much marketed directly to it (e.g. trees, eggs, rabbits, anatomically incorrect hearts, etc.).

So, this year I made two types of stuffing (and two fruit tarts) for the Thanksgiving dinner we had on the actual holiday.  This is because most of us believe that it makes the most sense if the host family makes the bird.  I don’t want to lug a 30lb bird around with me from house to house.

The interesting thing is that I’ve never actually made stuffing before.  I’m not a big stuffing person.  I think actually stuffing the turkey is really gross, especially if you have a large one.  By the time the stuffing is fully cooked, the turkey is overdone.  Or you could pull out the turkey when it’s done, but then you might have salmonella stuffing.  It’s gross guys.  Besides that, I’ve never really enjoyed eating stuffing.  If I’m going to eat something carb heavy, I’m going to fill up on fresh baked dinner rolls or mashed potatoes or…mashed potatoes.

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But I was asked to make stuffing (and dessert and cranberry sauce).  So I did.  I asked A-pusher which stuffing recipe she normally makes, as she luuuurves stuffing, and I did that.  But then I found a recipe for a Brussels sprouts and butternut squash stuffing.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed a taste for Brussels sprouts.  I reeeeaaaally like them.  I like how they look like little cabbages.  I like their texture.  I especially like their taste if they’re roasted.  And this recipe asked you to roast the Brussels sprouts and squash before tossing the stuffing together.

This was definitely the stuffing I liked the best.  It has some of the traditional flavors of stuffing, sage and the like, but it has roasty Brussels sprouts goodness too.  It’s really good.  I like it so much that I make it without the rest of the stuffing part.  Just the roasted vegetables and some of the spices and sometimes the cranberries too, but none of the bread, and have it as a side dish.

My cranberry sauce is pretty standard.  It’s made from fresh cranberries.  Just boil them to death with some sugar.  I like mine more on the tart side, so I use less sugar than standard.  I make a whole bunch and then use the leftovers as jam on toast or when making shortbread cookies.  Oooh, I should make those divot scones with cranberry sauce on top.

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The fruit tarts you’ve seen before.  My standard chocolate crust fruit tart.  This time with kiwi, blueberries, raspberries, and mango.

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And finally the turkey.  I went a little crazy and bought a whole turkey.  For myself.  It was one of the smaller turkeys I’ve ever made, but still…it’s a whole turkey.  And I’m the only one eating it.  I do a simple brined turkey.  I like that method the best.  I know that this year, the dry rub or dry brine was THE THING to do.  I’ve done that when roasting chickens.  I dunno if I’d ever want to attempt it with a turkey.  Yes, it’s really flavorful.  But it takes a lot of effort and time and fridge space.  With the normal brining procedure, if I have a frozen turkey, I can just defrost it in a bucket of salt water the night before and be ready to roast the next afternoon.

With all my turkey, I’m eating what you would consider a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  I had it just last night, in fact.  But also, I’m making turkey stock with the carcass.  I’m making turkey congee, because I’ve been craving it.  I’m making turkey quesadillas.  I’m making a lot of sandwiches (because I’m very fond of sandwiches).  I’m making hash.  Lots of stuff.  It really helps that I like turkey a lot.  Also, that I’m able to eat things for weeks on end without getting tired of it.