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It was a week of simple, quick meals, which will continue into next week. Pretty much everything I made this week is something I’ve made before, so it was a low-effort week, which I very much needed. I’m feeling okay most of the time, but when I get hungry, it comes up on me fast, and I’m not in the mood to take forever preparing dinner. These meals were exactly what I needed this week!
Sunday
Tacos! (made with homemade taco seasoning from Brown Eyed Baker)
One of the best things about making tacos is that you don’t actually have to do much cooking. I’m not sure if there’s any cooking technique easier than browning meat (well, cooking pasta, maybe). All the other prep can be done while the meat is absorbing the taco seasoning and water after browning. Geordie made himself a nice soft taco, while I opted for the taco salad route. Not exactly authentic Mexican cooking (it was Cinco de Mayo, after all), but it was tasty enough, and very easy to make!
Monday
Tofu Steaks (from La Fuji Mama), Edamame, and Gyouza
Sadly, storebought gyouza. I would love, someday, to make homemade gyouza, but that’s not something I’m willing to tackle right now. What I needed on Monday was a quick, easy meal, and this worked. The gyouza just needed to be warmed up, the edamame (frozen in the bag) spent just a few minutes in the microwave, and the tofu was pan-fried in sesame oil for about fifteen minutes. No recipe (though La Fuji Mama does provide one, but it’s more technique than recipe), and it all comes together in about 30 minutes. Perfect. And with enough edamame left over for lunch the next day. We ate our tofu with ponzu sauce, but anything would be acceptable. Another easy to adapt recipe.
Wednesday
Oven-Fried Chicken (from Calorie Countdown Cookbook) and Sweet Potato & Carrot Mash
Another very quick, very easy meal. I love cooking chicken this way: marinate in buttermilk, coat in seasoned panko, set over a rack on a baking sheet, and bake. Simple, flavorful, and so juicy.It’s intended as a base for a healthier chicken parmesan meal, but the truth is that it’s a good base for anything that involves pan-fried chicken. We ate ours with BBQ sauce, but any sauce would work really. I used thin chicken breasts to cut down on the cooking time, so this is another dish that can be brought together in about twenty minutes, give or take. The potato-carrot mash took longer, but most of the work in that is all the chopping involved!
Thursday
Spaghetti (with homemade sauce) and Salad
When I was deciding on meals this week, I gravitated toward dishes I can make without recipes. I have been making the base for this pasta sauce for almost a decade now, and it’s just something I can throw together from the top of my head. It’s all about personal taste. Not enough sugar? Add a little more. Needs some more salt? Okay. More herbs? Yup. A little red wine? Sure thing. It’s incredibly adaptable. For this one, I added mushrooms and ground beef for more heartiness. In truth, this isn’t a fast meal – good pasta sauce needs a couple hours to develop flavor, and this one usually simmers for 2-3 before it’s ready. But it’s not work-intensive, and the extra sauce freezes terrifically. So, no complaints here. It went very nicely with the whole wheat pasta, and though I wasn’t impressed with the Romaine salad, I was glad I’d made it. The homemade croutons were the best part though!
I totally intended to cook more for my in-laws while they were visiting, but between my sleepiness and our busy schedule of enjoying meals at San Antonio restaurants, I didn’t do much cooking. In fact, I made two meals (one of which the in-laws did not eat because they were out that evening playing a gig with old friends), two loaves of bread machine bread, and a pie. Oh, and some granola. Not the most exciting week, cooking-wise!
Monday
Spinach and Ricotta Pizza (from Cooking Season by Season)
My mother-in-law maintains a mostly vegetarian/vegan diet, so I tried to plan meals for the week accordingly (even though I didn’t actually use most of them, ah well). This one was extremely easy to throw together, especially since I already had the pizza dough defrosted and ready to go. Making the spinach was a bit of work, but it was worth it. The pizza isn’t very filling by itself, but my mother-in-law whipped up some guacamole and then sauteed some asparagus I had sitting in the fridge, and that rounded out the meal nicely.
Friday
Creamy Mushrooms and Eggs (from Around My French Table)
This was the week’s French Friday recipe, which I did not actually get around to making until Friday. I’m sure I will eventually get around to writing a post about it. In the meantime, I assure you that it was tasty. Certainly better than I thought it would be – and I had thought it would be pretty good anyway. Mushrooms are sauteed and then doused in cream. Lightly toasted brioche is placed on a plate and topped with scrambled eggs. (The original recipe called for poached eggs, which is how I prefer my eggs to be cooked. But, as we ended up using non-pasteurized eggs, we opted for scrambled. Not something I usually worry about, but no sense taking chances right now.) The creamed mushrooms are then spooned over the eggs, and that is that. A simple but delicious and irresistibly elegant meal. I could see us doing this for brunch on the weekends in the future. We both enjoyed it a great deal.
Saturday
Blueberry Cream Pie (from A Cozy Kitchen)
The 4th was Kentucky Derby day, one of my favorite days of the year. I had intended to make a Kentucky Hot Brown Tart (because hot browns are the best thing ever, but they definitely aren’t healthy!), but we had such a large lunch that none of us felt like eating much for dinner. So I made a pie instead. After all, I had the crust defrosted, I needed to do something with it! This is a simple pie that doesn’t require much effort. It just involves waiting. It’s a cold pie, so the crust needs to be pre-baked and then cooled completely. Then the filling is made and put in the crust, and that needs to chill. But once it’s done, it’s very tasty. It has lots of cream (heavy cream and cream cheese) but only three tablespoons of sugar, so it’s not overly sweet. Not exactly traditional for Derby Day but it turned out rather well.
Last week, with much excitement and fanfare, the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo began. The city’s been gearing up for it since January; for people who are into that kinda thing, it’s a pretty big deal. Geordie and I are going this Sunday because it’s nice to get out of the house and do things together. Also, it should be fun!
It’s pretty much a given that I’m going to make cupcakes every week, so Geordie’s co-workers have come to expect them. Last week, Geordie wondered aloud if I could make a rodeo-themed cupcake.
We couldn’t quite decide what flavors a “rodeo theme” would entail. A search brought up lots of different designs and decorations, but I’m more interested in flavor. That didn’t involve BBQ.
Geordie did not like the sound of a sweet BBQ cupcake. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.
After coming up with nothing, I retreated to my Pinterest cupcake board and found Churro Cupcakes from the Novice Chef (who is a Texan currently living in Florida, which is kinda funny in a cool way). I pinned these last year and toyed with thoughts of making them for Cinco de Mayo (I made cupcakes for the Kentucky Derby instead). I figured now was as good a time to make them as any!
Churro Cupcakes: cinnamon cake with cream cheese cinnamon frosting.
Man, these were sweet – in a totally good way! I made them small, which kinda disappointed Geordie, but it was just the way I wanted them. After all, I got more cupcakes out of the deal, so that more of Geordie’s co-workers could share in the cupcake love. And also, they were really sweet, and a few bites are all you need. I had one for breakfast, and it went quite nicely with the morning coffee.
Actually, if you switched out the cream cheese frosting for a buttercream one, it would probably taste a lot like a cinnamon roll. Just a thought.
Maybe they were a little too sweet for me, but I really liked the crumb of the cake – it was moist without being sticky, delicate without being too crumbly. This time around, I whipped my cream cheese and butter with a hand-mixer, and the frosting came out light and airy. It was a sweet cloud of a cupcake, and I’m glad I made it.
The Novice Chef sprinkled cinnamon-sugar over hers and then made it 100 times more awesome by drizzling dulce de leche over that. I know that would only increase the sweetness, but I bet it would still taste fabulous. I didn’t think I should do that though, because that kinda stuff doesn’t wear well overnight and into the next day. It’s too bad I can’t make completely fresh cupcakes to send to work with Geordie, but because I don’t feel like getting up at 3am to make cupcakes, that’s just how it has to be. Maybe next time I make these, I’ll put a little caramel filling in the middle. That would be pretty tasty!
I wouldn’t call these “my new favorite cupcake,” but they are definitely yummy and definitely worth trying. They’d be really good as a sweet end to a spicy Mexican meal. Or just as a treat. Or as breakfast. Or anything, really.
Happy baking!
