You Are What You Eat: April 10 through April 23
Streak of not eating in a restaurant - 407 days and counting.
Streak of not getting takeout from a restaurant - 97 days and counting.
New Recipes for the Year: 36 (+10)
Successfully obtaining ingredients that were left out of grocery orders of the prior interval let me make a lot of new recipes this time around, ten to be precise. That's easily the record for 2021 thus far, although a quick glance through 2020 showed it is definitely not the all-time record. The recipes came from three different issues of Eating Well plus the Weight Watchers Essential Freestyle Cookbook. Here we go!
- The only recipe from that Weight Watchers cookbook was a Lemon-Curry Chickpea & Celery Salad. It was quick and easy to make, but managed to achieve the rare combination of M liking and me hating it. Never again. The dressing was primarily yogurt, honey and curry powder, which seems like a winning combination on paper but in actuality was not good. M says she likes chickpea salads, but she graciously said she didn't like this one enough for me to make it again.
- Another failure the other way around was the Spaghetti with Arugula & Clam Sauce from the April 2021 Eating Well. I learned after putting the clams on the shopping list that M does not like clams. As such, I ended up making this for myself with a side of regular tomato sauce for her. I enjoyed it, and will probably steal the idea of mixing arugula in with pasta and sauce, but I did not like this nearly enough to make two separate meals again in the future.
- I made three other recipes from the April 2021 Eating Well. Poulet au Vinaigre (Chicken in Vinegar) was a delicious success that we both enjoyed. I wonder if I could figure out how to do the last, time consuming step in the Instant Pot.
- Also from the April 2021 Eating Well was the Mahi-Mahi with Spicy Tomato-Fennel Sauce. M really likes fennel, but the grocery store had failed to give us any on the prior trip. With fennel in hand, we had mahi mahi at home for the first time. It was poached in a nice sauce. We both liked the mahi mahi, but we may consider other recipes as even with the fennel this one didn't blow us away.
- The fourth and final April 2021 Eating Well recipe from this fortnight was Asopao de Gandules (Pigeon Pea Stew), which was also originally slated for last time but derailed when the grocery store gave us cannellini beans instead of pigeon peas. Alas, the stew was indistinguished, and while certainly edible was not worth the wait.
- I doctored up another macaroni & cheese from the January/February 2021 Eating Well, which like the other two I made previously is not online. This one was the Sweet & Spicy Macaroni & Cheese, which featured sweet potatoes and black beans and was easily the best of the three I've made so far.
- Also featured in the January/February issue was the Warm Spinach Salad with Chickpeas & Roasted Tomatoes. This was a chickpea salad we were both able to get behind. It does require some substantial oven roasting time so it's unfortunately not fast enough to make regularly.
- The last three recipes were from the March 2021 Eating Well. The one I looked forward to the most was Shrimp Risotto with Asparagus, which featured wild rice, asparagus and sugar snap peas. The shrimp were cooked in garlic and put on top of the risotto. It was good, but I've got another asparagus risotto that tastes better and doesn't take as long so I don't think I'll repeat this one.
- The Spinach & Artichoke Chicken smothers the chicken in spinach, cheese, cream cheese and artichokes hearts. As you might imagine, that worked out pretty well. We'll probably make this one again.
- The final recipe from the March 2021 Eating Well was Homemade Pudding, which I whipped up one morning during a work all hands where all I needed to do was listen, not watch. I made the chocolate variant. The pudding was very nice and we had it for dinner two days in a row. However, it was certainly more complicated than instant pudding, and while it wasn't really that much more effort, I'm not sure it was so much better as to be worth even that minimum effort, especially when you take into account that I had to buy half and half specifically for this recipe. I'll probably give it a pass in the future.
Streak of not getting takeout from a restaurant - 97 days and counting.
New Recipes for the Year: 36 (+10)
Successfully obtaining ingredients that were left out of grocery orders of the prior interval let me make a lot of new recipes this time around, ten to be precise. That's easily the record for 2021 thus far, although a quick glance through 2020 showed it is definitely not the all-time record. The recipes came from three different issues of Eating Well plus the Weight Watchers Essential Freestyle Cookbook. Here we go!
- The only recipe from that Weight Watchers cookbook was a Lemon-Curry Chickpea & Celery Salad. It was quick and easy to make, but managed to achieve the rare combination of M liking and me hating it. Never again. The dressing was primarily yogurt, honey and curry powder, which seems like a winning combination on paper but in actuality was not good. M says she likes chickpea salads, but she graciously said she didn't like this one enough for me to make it again.
- Another failure the other way around was the Spaghetti with Arugula & Clam Sauce from the April 2021 Eating Well. I learned after putting the clams on the shopping list that M does not like clams. As such, I ended up making this for myself with a side of regular tomato sauce for her. I enjoyed it, and will probably steal the idea of mixing arugula in with pasta and sauce, but I did not like this nearly enough to make two separate meals again in the future.
- I made three other recipes from the April 2021 Eating Well. Poulet au Vinaigre (Chicken in Vinegar) was a delicious success that we both enjoyed. I wonder if I could figure out how to do the last, time consuming step in the Instant Pot.
- Also from the April 2021 Eating Well was the Mahi-Mahi with Spicy Tomato-Fennel Sauce. M really likes fennel, but the grocery store had failed to give us any on the prior trip. With fennel in hand, we had mahi mahi at home for the first time. It was poached in a nice sauce. We both liked the mahi mahi, but we may consider other recipes as even with the fennel this one didn't blow us away.
- The fourth and final April 2021 Eating Well recipe from this fortnight was Asopao de Gandules (Pigeon Pea Stew), which was also originally slated for last time but derailed when the grocery store gave us cannellini beans instead of pigeon peas. Alas, the stew was indistinguished, and while certainly edible was not worth the wait.
- I doctored up another macaroni & cheese from the January/February 2021 Eating Well, which like the other two I made previously is not online. This one was the Sweet & Spicy Macaroni & Cheese, which featured sweet potatoes and black beans and was easily the best of the three I've made so far.
- Also featured in the January/February issue was the Warm Spinach Salad with Chickpeas & Roasted Tomatoes. This was a chickpea salad we were both able to get behind. It does require some substantial oven roasting time so it's unfortunately not fast enough to make regularly.
- The last three recipes were from the March 2021 Eating Well. The one I looked forward to the most was Shrimp Risotto with Asparagus, which featured wild rice, asparagus and sugar snap peas. The shrimp were cooked in garlic and put on top of the risotto. It was good, but I've got another asparagus risotto that tastes better and doesn't take as long so I don't think I'll repeat this one.
- The Spinach & Artichoke Chicken smothers the chicken in spinach, cheese, cream cheese and artichokes hearts. As you might imagine, that worked out pretty well. We'll probably make this one again.
- The final recipe from the March 2021 Eating Well was Homemade Pudding, which I whipped up one morning during a work all hands where all I needed to do was listen, not watch. I made the chocolate variant. The pudding was very nice and we had it for dinner two days in a row. However, it was certainly more complicated than instant pudding, and while it wasn't really that much more effort, I'm not sure it was so much better as to be worth even that minimum effort, especially when you take into account that I had to buy half and half specifically for this recipe. I'll probably give it a pass in the future.