As most of you know, Dave is really the cook in our family. After several years of me just cooking every once in awhile, we decided to share the task. Now we alternate cooking every two weeks. Since we rarely eat out, this includes planning and cooking two meals a day.
We’ve been trying to mix it up, adding new dishes, and also cutting down on meat. It’s not like we are ever going to be vegetarians (I did that years ago), but we want to add more beans and grains in our diet. It’s been fun looking for new dishes to cook. We pretty much burned ourselves out on the blackened salmon and mac nut crusted Mahi Mahi! If you are interested in learning about different beans to add to your menu, Dave is posting about them on his blog. This is the latest bean he featured.
Here are several of the recipes I cooked the last couple of weeks. Some are ones I’ve cooked before, but I also brought in a few new ones.
Let’s start with Honey Mustard Tofu Tenders. Years ago my main treatment for tofu was using it in a stirfry. It’s been a long time since I’ve cooked with it and just had to try this recipe from Eating Well. I’ll be making this again.
Another new recipe was Dr. Mark Hyman’s Sweet Potato Burgers. I wanted to try these because the burgers include beans adding extra fiber. Like a lot of recipes, we tweak. This recipe was for eight servings so I cut it in half. I also substituted spelt flour for the almond. Instead of the spice blend he suggested, I used cumin and coriander which are our two go-to spices. We both liked these burgers and the dressing was really yummy!
Now we can’t forget about dessert.
We recently went to Farview Orchards and picked cherries to freeze since our trees still don’t produce much more than a couple bags. That was a long day including the hour and a half driving time and several hours to wash, pit and freeze these lovelies. But now we have lots in the freezer, which will keep me from hoarding them!
Since we still had a couple bags from last year’s picking, I used one of them to make this Cherry Custard. This recipe is from Skinnytaste.com. I absolutely love most of her recipes. This one was okay. I substituted almond milk for the fat-free milk. I’m not saying it’s not good, it just wasn’t what I’d call a custard. It was between a custard and a cobbler. We decided that we liked my cobbler much better. And my cobber is so much easier to make!
One of the wonderful tried and true recipe I made this past week was the Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken Breasts, another Skinnytaste recipe. She uses cutlets. This week I did that, but often I’ll used chicken breasts that I’ve pounded thin. This is a great way to use all of that spinach Dave has frozen. Sometimes I’ll substitute cottage cheese for the ricotta, and they both work.
Another great recipe I made was our Taco filling. I used ground turkey, but you can use ground chicken or beef, or even shredded beef or chicken. I fix them as tostadas with lots of Dave’s fresh-from-the-garden lettuce. I didn’t have a current picture so I stole the picture off of Dave’s blog with shredded chicken. But you get the idea.
Being married to a foodie is challenging. Since he is a great cook, I have really been stretched to ramp up my skills. But that has really made me a better cook. I remember years ago when I played racquetball, I was told to always play with someone better so that I could improve. Well, it’s true. I am getting better and much more adventurous in the kitchen.
Just because it has been my two weeks in the kitchen doesn’t mean Dave’s not baking. We got hooked on Dr. Kracker crackers a year or so ago when we started shopping at Costcos. Well, they quit carrying them so we ended up buying them locally and they are really expensive. If you have never tasted them, they are so crunchy and loaded with lots of seeds. Dave found this recipe and made a batch. Don’t they look yummy? And they are!
Aside from cooking, and a little dyeing which I’ll blog about next time, I’ve been busy outside. I finally got the asparagus bed weeded and strawed for the season. I love how it will look once the ferns fill out.
And then I started a couple days ago on my daily harvesting of blueberries. Dave’s been picking the raspberries so we have this colorful breakfast with our muesli. Any blueberries we don’t eat, I’ll be freezing every day.
Well, that’s all about food today. I’m off to wash out some dyeing from yesterday. Hope you are having a great day!