by Sam Tackeff | Mar 23, 2014 | chicken, Meal Planning
Before I get to my meal plan, I have to share with you the best dinner that I made last week – the one that hit the spot in every which way. It ended up feeling a little bit Mediterranean, and a little bit Scandinavian, light and fresh and springy.
Balsamic chicken and potatoes with cucumber, avocado and dill salad. For this one I preheated the oven to 450 Fahrenheit, grabbed some chicken thighs, and seasoned them with salt, and a generous sprinkle of Italian seasoning (from the bulk Frontier spices). I made a dressing that was one part balsamic vinegar, and two parts olive oil – about 1/3 of a cup for about a pound and a half of chicken thighs – and coated the chicken in the dressing in a bowl. I set that aside while steaming some halved new potatoes in the microwave for 10 minutes, then layered my 12 inch skillet with the potatoes and chicken, gave everything a good mix with my hands, and then nestled the chicken thighs on top of the potatoes, baking for about 15 minutes, flipping the chicken, and cooking 15 minutes more. Once the chicken was cooked, I took it out of the oven, and let the potatoes cook for another 15 minutes until golden and a little puffy. Once they were done, I made a very quick salad – just a chopped cucumber, avocado, handful of fresh dill, olive oil, and a little salt. It was one of the first meals that I’ve eaten in my kitchen while sunlight was still in the sky! Welcome spring!
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For the past few days I’ve been in Washington D.C. on a little vacation, although tragically I came down with a pretty awful stomach virus (or food poisoning, can’t be sure), and haven’t been very interested in any food. But, I knew that I’d be feeling better soon, so I decided to outsource my meal planning to the lovely Jess of Cook Smarts, and try out the service! (Yep, that’s an affiliate link – I get a small cut if you buy a plan yourself, but I purchased the plan with my own hard earned moolah!) Cook Smarts has a four day meal plan that is released each week (and access to the archives if you subscribe – plans are currently $6-8 a *month* depending on if you buy monthly or yearly), and after looking through the sample meals, I decided to bite and try things out. The meals are all quite adaptable, with substitutions for paleo, gluten-free, and vegetarian, and I’ve made my own little tweaks with vegetables that we prefer at home.
Week of Sunday, March 23rd
Sunday: Eggs, a tiny bit of cheese, and scoop of raw sauerkraut. I’m still trying to get back to a happy tummy, so I’ve been chowing down on sauerkraut, and other gut-building foods for the past day. I do well with full fat dairy, so I added a little bit of special cheese to make myself feel better.
Monday: Cook Smarts Meal #1. fish sandwich with kale chips. For me this will be fish salad with greens, and with a homemade tartar sauce.
Tuesday: Cook Smarts Meal #2. classic tacos with iceberg lettuce and avocado salad. Another slight modification as taco salad, and I’m guessing that we’ll both be enjoying this one! I’m not sure if I’m going to do iceberg or romaine.
Wednesday: Cook Smarts Meal #3. skillet chicken with chard and salsa over roasted potatoes. Chicken and potatoes never let me down, and I always gravitate towards these simply homey recipes in cookbooks when I see them. Sometimes it’s the meals with the least ingredients that can really shine. (I’ll report back.)
Thursday: Cook Smarts Meal #4 breakfast burritos with spinach and tomato salad. This will be a breakfast omelet for me – but I like that it uses some of the leftover potatoes from the previous night’s meal to put together something quickly! Economy and leftovers are key in my kitchen!
What’s on your table this week?
–– Sam
by Sam Tackeff | Mar 15, 2014 | Meal Planning
That light is coming back to us – the kind that feels restorative, and lasts past 6 in the evening. It’s sweet relief after this brutal winter, although I won’t presume that we’ve seen the last of the snow in New England! My meal plan this week is short, as I’ll be flying to the nation’s capital on Wednesday for a re-charge with Wellesley friends. I’m looking forward to lots of fabulous meals, and hopefully some real spring-like weather!
Simple meals this week, mostly built off a protein and a vegetable – the kind of dinners that come about when I shop without a grocery list. I decided to swing by the market *before* making my weekly meal plan today (usually my planning is an elaborate affair of my own volition where I surround myself with my cookbooks and get lost in them for hours) – so to avoid over-purchasing, I simply picked a few random proteins, vegetables I know we’ll both eat, some extra lettuce and spinach for salads, and hightailed out of there before I spent a paycheck on chocolate covered potato chips, matcha powder, fancy olives or some other superfluous treat.
Week of Saturday, March 15th
Saturday: Eggs, brussels sprouts, pancetta and a little bit of cheese. When in doubt – eggs for dinner. I think I might make a regular habit of a weekend egg dinner, instead of an extra meal out that too often occurs when I’m tired from batch cooking.
Sunday: Chicken thighs, brussels sprouts, and new potatoes. A variation of what I go to week after week. I picked up a few new cookbooks this weekend including Anya von Bremzen’s The New Spanish Table and David Leite’s The New Portuguese Table, so I’m guessing we’ll be having some seasoning from that general region to spice things up – maybe a large dollop of homemade mayo to bring it all together.
Monday: Marinated Pork tenderloin and broccoli. A little boring. I’ll be coming home from an evening yoga class, so I needed something quick and relatively hands off.
Tuesday: Vietnamese-ish beef and carrot salad with mint. My everyday favorite: ground beef with five spice, and a carrot and mint salad with a basic Nuoc Cham, a dressing of fish sauce, a little sugar, and lime.
What’s on your table this week?
–– Sam
by Sam Tackeff | Mar 12, 2014 | Seafood
Last year, tragically, I missed the shad roe. The season is very, very short – when the shad swim up the Delaware to lay their eggs, a week or two at most. Unlike the marketable items of the season, the shamrock shakes and corned beef, the asparagus you’ll be eating for weeks, if you see a lobe of these, buy them, buy them right away, you’ll likely only get one chance to, and then they are gone.
Let’s not beat around the bush, the visual aesthetic of shad roe is unfailingly feminine. Shad roe is the egg sac of the shad, a historically significant fish around these parts. Shad roe sacs are large, filled with tiny eggs that firm up when cooked. The taste is reminiscent of both offal and caviar, a distinct flavor I look forward to once a year.
Once you procure one of these, you have a few options, but most agree that gently cooking in butter or bacon fat (or both!) is the way to go. My mom dredges hers in a little flour, salt, and pepper before cooking, and makes a green salad with lemon oil dressing, preferring to stuff the cooked shad and salad into a crusty baguette. (This is always a good option.)
I happened across a lobe at Whole Foods this weekend, and surrendered $13 dollars for the delicacy. You can find it for less, but after last year’s debacle – I saw it in the store on my morning walk, committed to coming back a few hours later to buy it, and upon returning it was gone for the season – I was prepared for highway robbery in order to get my prize. Without knowing what I wanted to do with it, I stalled, by brining the roe sac overnight in a quart of water and tablespoon of salt. This helps to reduce any blood in the veins, and produce, some say, a sweeter flavor. It’s not a necessary step, but you can’t put off buying shad roe if you see it, and this gives you a little extra time after purchase to decide its fate.
To cook my shad roe, I took a note from Jody and Ken here – in some butter and pancetta, gently on one side for about ten minutes, basting every three, then five minutes on the other side. I re-iterate gently – to avoid the splattering, popping of roe exploding. (And these babies EXPLODE!). After cooking the roe, and removing it from the cast iron, I made a quick pan sauce with the juice of a lemon, and a large spoonful of chopped rinsed capers, and served everything over a nice bowl of baby spinach. Peppery arugula would have been nice here too.
For one, a half a lobe will do, for two, you have a meal, or for a lone shad roe lover, a meal, and a second go around at breakfast, with leftovers accompanied by some scrambled eggs and bacon. I dutifully saved some for myself and dinner, round two, was on a fresh Clear Flour baguette, with a slathering of homemade mayo.
Have you tried shad roe?
