Baked pasta with broccoli rabe and sausage. I come home later on Mondays so I ended up putting this together on Sunday night. I did everything but heat the pasta in the oven and it held over perfectly. I used chicken sausage instead of pork because I wanted something lighter (as much lighter as a baked pasta dish full of cheese can be…), which it was, but I would prefer Italian pork sausage otherwise. The bechamel is a bit of work, but it is mostly being attentive and whisking while everything else boils. This was a big hit at dinner, and even reappeared as breakfast later in the week.

Roasted cauliflower and lentil salad. I left out the cinnamon, ginger, and dates here, and swapped kale for the arugula. Instead of letting everything cool and then tossing the salad, I tossed the hot cauliflower and lentils with the kale so it would wilt a bit and be easier to eat (with great success). I wanted a little extra acid, so I squeezed another half a lemon on the finished salad. It was filling and absurdly healthy, a perfect counterpoint to the pasta full of cheese from the previous night.

Rice bowls with avocado, mango, and green sauce. I intended to use a green mango I had but didn’t give it enough time to ripen, so I resorted to frozen mango. I sauteed the onion and then added the cooked black beans and their liquid, and let it simmer enough so the black beans thickened. Then I added a teaspoon of white vinegar and some salt. The green sauce and a few dashes of Tapatio made this into the easiest weeknight dinner.

I made extra rice for the burrito bowls and intended to make it into fried rice.  But there didn’t end up being as much leftover rice as I hoped and there were way more leftover black beans than I intended, so dinner changed course to be “everything in the fridge that could go on a tortilla.” There was some leftover squash from a week ago, leftover buffalo tofu, lettuce, avocado, salsa, and I made some small salads from the cucumber, cherry tomato, cilantro, red onion and cider vinegar. All the leftovers in the fridge were used up and everyone was happy. WIN WIN.

I’ve kept up my sourdough making and this time I tried adding oats, which my sister warned me would disappear in the bread and she was right. But it still makes excellent toast with butter and honey, or avocado. I also made a few breakfast burritos with black beans, scrambled eggs, and whatever else I found in the fridge.

A few extra things to read this week. After reading Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper I’ve been on a constant hunt for (and creator of) Sichuan food. Pete Wells wrote about a restaurant this week that I want to go to right now: “Corn kernels stir-fried with pine nuts are strangely easy to get along with.” And the Piglet started this week!! I took out Brooks’ book from the library after he won the Piglet last year and I have to admit it didn’t grab me. But it was unlike any cookbook I’ve ever read and he was a great pick for judging the first Piglet round. I loved that he took on two cookbooks so different from his own style, tested them with his restaurant staff, and compared similar recipes from both cookbooks. Looking forward to the rest!

I feel like I’ve barely cooked or eaten this week, though these photos and the fact that I’m still able to type prove otherwise. My time and mind was dominated by the agriculture, nutrition, and cooking winter break camp with 4th-7th graders I ran. We planted, learned, crafted, and cooked all week.

My favorite activity was perhaps having each kid plan out a week’s worth of meals and the shopping list to go along with it. I brought in a whole bunch of cookbooks for them to go through and I think greatly excited a bunch of parents who realized this was a task their kid could take over. We cooked every day, and I’ve done this enough to have the basics down. Go over knife safety every time, but let them do the work themselves. Make sure everyone has a task at all times. Give them room to experiment.

We made pizzas on tortillas and English muffins, hummus and black bean dip, fruit salad, snacks with nut butter, and smoothies (I used Alton’s hummus recipe, and one of the campers came back to ask for the recipe so her dad could make it for his next party). The smoothies were probably the biggest hit. After making a basic recipe they added spinach or kale leaves one at a time, but then they just kept experimenting with the rest of the ingredients until we ran out. Even the kids who asked me if they absolutely had to add the greens were slurping them up. Heck yes.

Winter salad with mind-blowing sauce. I wouldn’t necessarily go with “mind-blowing,” but it was a quick, interesting sauce that made a giant platter of vegetables very enticing.

Steak, Guinness and cheese pie. This isn’t exactly quick or easy….but so delicious. Each time I make it I’m amazed that such a complex sauce emerges when the only liquid is Guinness. Not something to make often, but most certainly worth making. Make sure you have a crowd to feed, because though the recipe says it feeds 4-6 it is more like 10-12. Let it cool for a bit if you can wait before serving so the filling doesn’t spill out of the crust as much.

After a half-day drive and a long shopping trip, a fast dinner was in order: quesadillas with pinto beans, scallions, sauteed kale, cherry tomatoes, and chopped scallions.

Somehow I made one too many pans of stuffing at Thanksgiving, so this has been waiting for it’s day in the freezer. To go alongside I roasted a chicken following the basic instructions in The Homemade Kitchen and I made a salsa verde with shallots and parsley (from An Everlasting Meal). The shallots in the salsa verde were soaked an vinegar and drained, so I used the vinegar on a big mountain of sauteed kale. Classic combinations for a reason.

Polenta with chicken ragu, sauteed mushrooms, roasted cherry tomatoes and peppers, and salsa verde. I read through This is Camino which inspired the ragu which was basically a well-cooked mirepoix with cooked chicken and broth (from that roasted chicken earlier in the week). Another reminder of how polenta is an excellent base to make a meal out of whatever else is kicking around in your fridge.

Buffalo blue cheese deviled eggs. I can’t believe I used to not like deviled eggs. Probably because they were lacking blue cheese and hot sauce. These came together in about as long as it took me to cook the eggs, and they will be coming back again.

Steak with mustard butter and frites (from My Paris Kitchen) with creamed spinach. I started with a really nice steak so I didn’t do much work there, but these frites make something incredible from a most humble potato. My next poutine attempt will start with these fries.

Quinoa with buffalo tofu, broccoli, sweet potatoes, and ranch. This barbeque tempeh recipe was my inspiration, but as I was about to make this I realized I didn’t have any barbecue sauce or the energy to make some. So this became buffalo tofu, marinated quickly an a 1:1 of Frank’s and olive oil, then roasted. The sweet potatoes were roasted, and the broccoli was steamed (because I was out of oven space). I made a non-vegan ranch with buttermilk, a little mayo, garlic, lemon juice, and dill. It’s safe to say this will all happen again.

Since I had to be at work much earlier for camp I ate most breakfasts at my desk this week. Before I left I thawed some frozen berries and mango in a jar and topped them with a big scoop of Greek yogurt,  maple syrup, and my mom’s granola. I also made a batch of whole wheat chocolate coffee banana muffins because they are the best.

Crispy wing with three-flavored sauce (from Simple Thai Food). These wings were a lot of work. They had to marinate, then be coated with flour, then rest, then be deep fried. While all that was happening the sauce had to be made and cooled. One of the ingredients for the sauce is tamarind pulp, which I couldn’t buy straight out so I had to hand squeeze it before making the sauce. I used brown rice flour instead of the white called for in the coating because it was on-hand, but most of it fell off in the frying process. After one bite, I would have done all of the work over again to have a second. They were seriously spicy, but with enough sticky sweetness to just mitigate the flame. I will crave these often, and make them occasionally.

Glass noodle salad (from Simple Thai Food). This was a slightly sour salad with cooked and dried shrimp and ground pork. It was good, but any dish would be hard to follow after the intense flavors of the wings. I’m more excited to try other recipes in the book before making this one again.

Sichuanese Chinese chopped celery with pork. I’ve made this recipe with the called for beef, chopped chicken thighs, and now pork. Any which way it is absolutely delicious. Some of the ingredients go beyond the usual pantry items, but once you have them you can make this dish with ease.

Twice cooked chard (from Every Grain of Rice). This was a lot of greenery to go with the celery dish, but as I’ve come to expect from Fucshia, it was a full-flavored dish that brought out the best in the chard.

Sweet potato with Thai curry and coconut soup. Will put this together while I made the elaborate wings during the Superbowl. It is a hearty, vegan soup that takes a bit of time to put together (you roast the sweet potatoes first), but minimal effort beyond the chopping. It’s a great option beyond the usual vegetable and broth offering.

Pasta with red sauce and linguica. I had planned to make a curry from Simple Thai Food but when I got home from work it seemed like an insurmountable task. So I turned to the pantry and freezer. In the freezer I found some tomato sauce, the fridge had a sausage and butter, and the pantry contributed pasta and onion. It was simple, satisfying, and zero stress.

Pasta with yogurt and carmelized onions. I finally got the chance to try this recipe and…..it was good, but not mind blowing. Sure, using just yogurt for pasta sauce is pretty ingenious,  the caramelized onions add a perfect complementary sweetness, and really you only need 3 ingredients for the whole shebang. I’m happy to have this recipe in my back pocket for when I’m stranded with just these ingredients, but I won’t be going out of my way to regularly make it.

Acorn squash with chile-lime vinaigrette. The flavar of this was great…I just can’t get myself to love the texture of acorn squash. Maybe I didn’t cook it for long enough? I’ve made a very similar Ottolenghi dish with butternut that I liked much better.

Grapefruit olive oil pound cake (from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook). This is probably my most repeated recipe from this cookbook. If you adore grapefruit, this cake is perhaps its most worthy showcase.

Belgian brownie cakelets. There was some disagreement in our house about the name of this dessert. To me, they definitely skewed more cake than brownie. I prefer a fudginess in my chocolate baked goods so I will try something else before making these again, but they were still just 5 ingredients and pretty good if you aren’t as picky about brownies (or cakelets).

French toast with bananas. I can’t tell you the last time I cooked or even ate French toast. It was my favorite breakfast as a kid though, and one morning this week I indulged my craving. This won’t be my everyday breakfast, but I shouldn’t go so long without it.

This week was a true tale of rollover meals. The leftover chicken from the fajitas I made last week went into enchilada filling. I made more enchilada filling than I needed, which became the topping for burrito bowls. We didn’t use quite all of it for burrito bowls though, so the remaining bit turned into breakfast when topped with an egg, avocado, and some hot sauce. Plus I saved the bones from the roasted legs to go into stock, so they will just keep on giving.

Mattar paneer. This was a dish I’d never tried before making it. I’m sure there are better versions out there, but I wasn’t overly impressed with this one. I didn’t find the spices strong enough. Frozen peas probably didn’t do it justice, and next time I’ll try making my own paneer.

Greens and beans with red wine and garlic sausage. This is the kind of dish that is barely any work, so adaptable, and I could eat every day. I used a mix of kidney and pinto beans (because they were already cooked in the freezer), lacinato kale, and toasted baguette instead of the breadcrumbs (because I always burn them). I can’t take any credit for the best part though, the Short Creek sausage which is incredible all by itself.

Roasted sweet potato, black bean, and chicken enchiladas. I followed the recipe for these enchiladas, but instead of zucchini and corn used roasted sweet potatoes and shredded chicken (from about 1.5 legs). My ideal winter version of this dish.

Cauliflower arugula bleu mac and cheese. If you have struggled to love cauliflower, this is the dish that will convert you. Bleu cheese too strong? Sub cheddar.

Burrito bowls with roasted sweet potatoes, chicken, and black beans with green sauce. Dinner needed to happen quickly so we could head out to trivia. I got home from work, threw on some brown rice, made the green sauce, and reheated the black bean, chicken, and sweet potato mixture. Dinner was on the table at 6pm (which NEVER happens), and we landed a solid third place at trivia. There was a round where they read classic recipes minus one ingredient and you had to guess what was missing (like deviled eggs but without the paprika and hollandaise sans eggs). It was my own trivia heaven.