Saturday Dinner: Fish Tacos

Tonight's menu:

• Beer-battered fish tacos
• Tomato and avocado salsa
• Rice and black beans

Wow, this was a great meal! The fish tacos were better than I've ever had in a restaurant. That's one thing I love about cooking; you can have the same food you would get in a restaurant (a great steak, hamburger, fish tacos) but for half the cost and you can cook it to suit your tastes perfectly. Why eat out?!

We followed the fish recipe exactly and it was delicious. Crispy on the outside, flaky on the inside, and with that slight flavor of beer which, when combined with seafood, makes me think of a beach vacation.

The salsa was absolutely amazing...there is nothing better than homemade salsa. We left out the cilantro because we aren't huge fans and for some reason it's really hard to find up here in New England. We also added garlic because we are of the opinion that garlic makes just about anything better. It was so good we both wanted to eat the salsa straight out of the bowl. We will definitely be making it again.

The rice and beans were plain and simple...just some basmati rice, cooked in our new favorite way, with a can of black beans thrown in for extra protein and flavor. And yes, we did use canned beans. Back in the co-op days (more to come on that later) we would have cooked the beans from scratch along with the rest of the meal. But that is, frankly, way too much work for us now that we're only cooking for two people. Sometimes canned food just makes more sense. It's a little more expensive, but worth it to save a couple hours of cooking time.

The only problem with this meal was the sorry-excuse-for-a-tortilla we had to use. Back in Texas, really good tortillas were easy to come by. Apparently that is not the case here, and we had to use these flavorless, mealy, floppy things. I'm thinking we're going to have to start making our own tortillas. If anyone knows of a good tortilla recipe, post it in the comments please!

Wednesday Dinner - Chicken Satay

Tonight's menu:

• Sauteed chicken with peanut dipping sauce
• Cucumber salad
• Basmati rice

This dinner was extremely satisfying. The chicken is based on a Thai dish, but we used a recipe from my files that called for sauteeing the chicken rather than grilling it (since grilling is rather unpleasant in 20-degree weather). Unfortunately, I don't know where the recipe came from so I can't give proper attribution. If you've seen it somewhere, let me know!

The ingredients (for 4 servings) are:

• 1.5 lbs chicken cutlets
• 1 tsp Asian chili sauce
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 2 tsp lime juice
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/4 cup hot water

Cooking it was very simple. We just sauteed the chicken in oil until it was browned on both sides and cooked through. Then we mixed all the other ingredients together for the dipping sauce, and it was done! The cucumbers were just sliced and mixed with a little rice vinegar, lime juice, and brown sugar. A fast, easy, and delicious meal.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the rice. Normally I wouldn't even comment on cooking plain rice but tonight we discovered a new method that was so great we were both raving about the rice...just the rice! The instructions, from startcooking.com, involve adding some butter to the rice as it's cooking, and the butter makes a huge difference. The rice came out creamy and wonderful. If you've never cooked rice this way, I definitely suggest trying it.

A quick note: I really liked the peanut dipping sauce, but Matt thought it was too rich and too peanut-y. I'm thinking this could be toned down some by thinning it with extra water. It was a little thick for a dipping sauce, so maybe we'll try that next time.

Sunday Dinner - Finger Food

Tonight's Menu:

• Homemade chicken tenders
• Carrot and cucumber slices
  
• Homemade honey mustard dipping sauce

Today's dinner was a fast, easy comfort-food meal because we spent the whole day cleaning and were too tired to do anything more elaborate. However, even though it's not exactly gourmet fare, this was a tasty and satisfying dinner...all the more so because we got to eat with our hands and pretend to be kids for a while.

The big upside to this meal was that we got our fast-food fix without actually buying fast food, thus upping the health factor considerably and lowering the total cost. Win-win! For the chicken tenders, we dipped them in flour, then beaten egg, then a breading of cornmeal mixed with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. We baked the tenders instead of frying them, which meant there was almost no added oil, just enough to coat the baking pan.

The best part of this meal was definitely the honey mustard. I've never made this condiment before, I've only had store-bought prepared versions. I will never go back. This was a simple mixture of sour cream (reduced-fat organic...we always get organic dairy products), dijon mustard, and local New Hampshire wildflower honey. It was so much better than the pre-packaged stuff, and with the added bonus of not having weird color or flavor additives. I highly recommend making your own honey mustard!

Weekend Breakfast - French Toast

We had another mutual Saturday morning off work, and we took advantage of it to the fullest! Matt cooked again and this week he decided to do a classic breakfast: French toast, bacon (thus fulfilling our bacon-and-egg requirement), and fruit.

For the French toast, he modified a recipe from one of my favorite standard cookbooks, Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cookbook. It's a very simple recipe, calling only for eggs, sugar, salt, milk, and of course bread. Matt added cinnamon to the mix and fried the toast in lots of melted butter, which in my opinion makes anything taste amazing. Of course we topped it with real Vermont maple syrup, made at the ranch where our friend Ryan used to work.

The addition of fruit (pineapple and blueberries) was an attempt to add some semblance of healthiness to our meal. This was probably completely negated by the fact that we each ate four pieces of bacon...actually, I ate five. But some fruit is better than no fruit, right?

Daily Dinner - A Meal in a Tomato

Tonight's menu:

• Stuffed tomatoes with golden crumb topping
• Steamed green beans

This meal was so easy to make! There was a good deal of chopping and prep work, but then the food basically cooked itself. And I love a dish whose ingredients are a meal in themselves. This tomato dish included vegetables, grains, and protein and in one pretty, round little package. Fun!

The one thing I had trouble with (and of course I opted to try it instead of letting Matt do the dirty work) was hollowing out the tomatoes. I did get firm tomatoes as called for in the recipe, but it was still tricky to scoop out the insides without ripping through the tomato wall. The recipe suggested using a melon baller, which we do not own (kind of ironic I suppose, given my nickname). Maybe I'll get one and try that next time.

I will also say that this recipe had a little too much "golden crumb topping" for my taste. Not that I don't love toasted bread crumbs with olive oil, garlic, and parmesan...I most certainly do! But it kind of overpowered the stuffing, which was really good. I think if we make this dish again I'll cut the bread crumbs in half. After all, they're meant to be a topping, not the whole dish.

All in all, we rate this a 3.5 star meal...great idea, tasted good, but needs a little tweaking.

Weekend Breakfast - Heavenly Skillet

On the weekends, we tend to skip the fancy dinners in exchange for delicious breakfasts. Since our weekday mornings tend to be rushed, these leisurely meals are a nice change of pace. They almost always involve eggs and bacon, but the other ingredients tend to vary according to our moods.

This Saturday Matt opted to do a skillet, adding potatoes, onions, red bell pepper, garlic, and cheese to the egg and bacon combo. Rather than using a recipe, he just chopped everything up and fried it all together until it looked good, then melted the cheese on top. I'm an always-follow-a-recipe kind of girl, but Matt is great at just throwing together a bunch of ingredients to make a terrific dish.

As an aside, cooking me breakfast is one of the ways Matt won my love. I don't know if it's true that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but I can tell you the way to a woman's heart is to bring her a home-cooked breakfast in bed!

Daily Dinner - Asian-Inspired Take on a Classic

Tonight's menu:

• Asian "Salisbury" steak on a bed of wilted watercress
• Brown rice with red bell pepper garnish

It drives me crazy when recipes give a "total time" of, say, 30 minutes but then half the ingredients listed need some kind of preparation (chopping, slicing, peeling, etc.) that isn't included in the given time. So a dish that is supposed to take 30 minutes to make ends up taking 45. This was one of those dishes, but fortunately with two of us cooking we can split up the tasks and it goes much faster. We got this one finished about 40 minutes from the time we walked in the door. Not bad, and certainly a manageable amount of time for a weeknight dinner.

The recipe itself was pretty good, but the sauce was a little sweet for my taste. We added some garlic to the steak, because we are of the opinion that garlic makes everything better. And it did.

Also, these instructions from Steve Pavlina's blog are our favorite method for cooking brown rice. It comes out perfect every time!