Homemade Pizza. We’ve had some friends over for dinner these past couple weeks, and my go-to has been homemade pizza. I made a prosciutto and caramelized onions pizza, and a mushroom one. The mushroom one is a new recipe I tried out. I used shiitake and bella mushrooms, made a light chili garlic oil for sauce, used mozzarella and havarti cheese, and loaded it up with lots of herbs. Ben and I both really liked it, so I think this pizza will be added to our go-to pizza recipes. For dough, this is the recipe I always use.
Vietnamese Pork and Rice Noodles. We love this recipe! In fact, we ate it for 3 days straight. It has a nice balance, since we use a lean meat and throw in a lot of vegetables. We have ours with swiss chard from our garden.
Week of 6/29 – 7/3
Monday: Easy Pasta
Tuesday: Korean Tacos
Wednesday: Leftovers
Thursday: Fish Tacos
Friday: Tilapia Ceviche
It will be weird only cooking for 2 kids this week. I have a feeling this week’s menu might change.
Wonton Soup. I had chicken broth from making chicken enchiladas the week before, so I made soup with it. Since I discovered how easy it is to make wontons, I made those and threw it in, along with some chard and kale we have in our garden.
Vietnamese Chicken Pho.I’ll never tire of this recipe. It’s so easy, and it even tastes better the next day.
Baked Wontons with Sichuan Red Oil. After making wontons a few times, it’s no longer intimidating and so easy to whip together. A little bit of shallots, garlic, ginger, green onions, together with lean ground turkey make a simply delicious filling. Then, with that red oil sauce… it’s just divine! Beware though, that sauce is not low calorie. Ben was eating it like soup until he realized, and then he said, “Oh my.”
Filipino Chicken Adobo.It’s the one Filipino dish I make, and the girls love it, especially with egg. I usually make with it chicken breast, but this was mainly for the girls, so drumsticks was the meat I had on hand.
Week of 5/25 – 5/29
Monday: Dinner out with family
Tuesday: Leftovers
Wednesday: Mexican Tacos
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Tilapia Ceviche
Ben’s been working so many late nights that we only get family dinner about once a week. It’s been like this since the beginning of the year, so I’m looking forward to June when his work schedule is a little more balanced. All of us sitting together at the dinner table is something I cherish, so I can’t wait to have more of that again.
Vietnamese Style Lemongrass Pork with Brown Rice and Carrot Relish. This was such a busy day and I was super rushed to get dinner together that I overcooked the pork (it was too chewy) and my coarse shredded carrots became carrot mush. Overall though, the flavors were good; Ben and I agreed that we should give this dish another shot. Next time, I will pay attention and bake the pork for 15 minutes (instead of 25) and not stick the carrots in the vita-mix.
Mexican Picadillo. We went over to our friends’ place for dinner, and my friend Kelley made this dish for us. It’s a recipe her mom made often for her growing up, and I loved it so much that I made it at home a couple days later (I texted her for the recipe). She cooked it over the stovetop, but I wanted to see if the crockpot would work well for it, and indeed it did. It is basically lean ground turkey (she used ground beef), quartered potatoes, fresh tomatoes, garlic, onions, serranos, cilantro, with a teaspoon of cumin, and salt and pepper to taste. I cooked it on high for about 4 hours and it came out so delicious. Leftovers were even better because the flavors had a longer period to blend together.
Ground Turkey Tacos. You really can’t go wrong with tacos. They win in our family every time.
Bún Thịt Nướng (Vietnamese Grilled Pork & Rice Noodles) with Chả Giò (Egg Rolls). The BFF texted me this recipe when she made this a few weeks back. She told me that its spice level made her husband feel like he was dying, so then I knew, we would love this! HA! I finally got around to making it this week, and let me tell you… oh, we loved it!!! Don’t let the name intimidate you, it’s really quite simple to make. Everything is just absolutely delicious, and I baked the eggs rolls instead of frying them! Seriously, that is amazing. This just opened a whole new world for me and my family. I’m Filipino, and lumpia (Filipino egg roll) is delicious, but so bad because it’s deep fried. I probably haven’t had any in a few years (we don’t eat much Filipino food). Now, that I know they can be baked, I’m going to try and make them for my girls. Anyway, this is noodle and egg roll recipe is one you must try! Hungry Huy is right when he says this dish is “love in a bowl.”
Easy Pozole. I used the recipe in Gwyneth Paltrow’s book (I shared about it here) and it is really delicious. Best of all, it’s so simple to make (and healthy!). It had been over a year since I made it last, but it was just as yummy as I remembered it. I made two batches, one for the spice lovers in the family (Ben, Brave, and me), and another much more milder batch too for the rest of them.
Woot woot! It’s my 100th official week of meal planning. When I look back in my archives, I made so many different dishes. I started this not really into cooking, not knowing much, and now I love it! Putting it out here has been great for accountability and challenging myself. I started back in March 2012 (see the first post here) and it has helped us be more intentional with our family dinners. I love serving my family in this way, but I do appreciate a break from time to time too. If you feel like cooking or meal planning is daunting, I’m living proof that it can be done. I’m not a natural chef, but I definitely think I have gotten much better with time and practice.
I have a large growing pile of fabric scraps. I refuse to throw them away because I am sure they can be used for something. I have been seeing different types of interesting necklaces made of buttons, beads, and fabric. Then, I figured why not make one out of my scraps...
I think it made my white shirt a little less boring. This was so quick and easy to make.
How to make a recycled scraps necklace (which is very similar to the straps on my braided tablecloth bag):
1. Take your scrap fabric, I cut a .5''-1'' snip and tear the rest of the fabric down for a nice frayed edge. Used 3 different fabrics for each strand.
2. Take 3 of the torn pieces and tie the ends together with a rubber band.
3. Braid the 3 pieces together and tie ends together with rubber band when done.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for more strands. Remember you can make the strands any length you want, if run out of fabric, just weave more into the braid.
5. Once all the strands you want are braided, gather one end of each strand together and straight stitch together with sewing machine. Repeat for the other ends of the strands. Snip off any excess.
6. Gather ends of the necklace and sew together (snip excess) or a ribbon can be sewn at the ends to be able to tie the necklace closed, but I just sewed both ends together.
7. Voila! A nice way to make use of all your lovely scraps.
Sorry if the directions get you a little lost, but it really is easy. I promise. Maybe I should put some in the shop. Please share any other good ideas you may have of things that can be made with scraps. I would love to hear (read) them!
Homemade Pizza. We’ve had some friends over for dinner these past couple weeks, and my go-to has been homemade pizza. I made a prosciutto and caramelized onions pizza, and a mushroom one. The mushroom one is a new recipe I tried out. I used shiitake and bella mushrooms, made a light chili garlic oil for sauce, used mozzarella and havarti cheese, and loaded it up with lots of herbs. Ben and I both really liked it, so I think this pizza will be added to our go-to pizza recipes. For dough, this is the recipe I always use.
Vietnamese Pork and Rice Noodles. We love this recipe! In fact, we ate it for 3 days straight. It has a nice balance, since we use a lean meat and throw in a lot of vegetables. We have ours with swiss chard from our garden.
