Goodfood #13

Time for a lovely food post! I’ve been writing about books and movies and TV series that this is a nice little break! 🙂

We’re onto another Goodfood box. My darling friend Phoebe (aka Starry Traveler) suggested that I do a video unboxing of Goodfood after this one. Due to the PC issues I talked about earlier today, that will be something I’ll look at in the future once that is settled and operations get back to usual.

Let’s check out this box!

Seared Salmon Ramen with Black Salt Miso, Carrots and Mushrooms

The first meal of the box was the ramen. Its been pretty chilly here with quite a few storms so its always nice to have some warm soup for some heat and comfort. This meal was a lot of fun to make. I was able to multitask a lot of it and timed it all fairly well. There is some chopping involved with the carrots but other than that, its nothing complex. Its also why I love making ramen bowls. This one tasted quite good. Salmon has gotten so expensive that when we get boxes with them, its the rare occasion we actually buy it anymore. This box’s highlight was the black salt and we sprinkled it on top of the fish and it added a really nice flavor to it.

BBQ Tofu Subs with Pickled Cucumber Ribbons and Yellow Beet Chips

Our hesitation for this box went to Tofu Subs. My husband really doesn’t like tofu too much but he opted for this one. Surprisingly  for both of us, it was incredibly delicious. I don’t know if its the sauces they use or just the combination of everything, it was really delicious. The pickled cucumbers were good but a pain to cut especially since I don’t own a mandolin so it was just cutting it as thin as I could with a knife. The beet was kind of annoying to peel as well. This meal has a lot of prep work to it. However, the results were worth it. Writing this up, actually reminded me of something I need to message Goodfood about.

Pork Chops with Agrodolce Sauce and Roasted Vegetables

I had no idea what agrodolce sauce was before but our little menu card gave a delightful description of it. I’d be lying if reducing the sauce had me a little worried because usually the worst results are anything we need to reduce. Surprisingly, it actually turned out quite good. This one is rather sour though. However, I love roasted veggies and the spices blended so well with the sauce to make the pork chops really delicious.

Harissa-Honey Chicken with Spiced Zucchini and Sugar Snap Peas Couscous

Finally to the Harissa-Honey chicken. My bowl didn’t have any  harissa because hot sauce is not my thing. We’re not a big fan of this type of couscous however, the blend with the spiced zucchini and the snap peas actually gave it quite a nice flavor. On top of that, the only issue I had was the instructions on how to make the chicken felt a little inexact and my chicken turned out looking really burnt. Normal because there was honey but I also wondered why it wasn’t blended before. However, despite the burnt bits, it was very good as well.

I’m keeping nice and short today. 4 delicious meals, some nice surprises and nice flavors in the box. My favorite overall for this box would have to go to the Tofu Sub. The Seared Salmon Ramen definitely comes very close to a fave here as well.

Recap: Goodfood #10

We’re somewhat back to normal programming this week. I’m still off today for Boxing Day as all the time. I wasn’t able to get the post done before I headed out for shopping so a little late on my part so today we’re taking it easy with just a quick recap on last week’s Goodfood meal box. We’re at the 10th box! That’s pretty awesome since so far, they’ve been still very impressive. The recipes are helping us learn a lot about different ingredients and different types of meals.

Let’s check it out!

Spiced Shrimp & Preserved Lemon Topping
with Jerusalem Couscous, Sauteed Zucchini & Multicolored Carrots

Preserved Lemon was the highlight ingredient of this dish. I personally have seen it before. Preserved lemon is actually very good to use for honey lemon tea to soothe sore throats. Actually, my mom used to prefer using that when I was younger. With that said, I wasn’t sure how it’d turn out as a main dish but this shrimp dish was pretty good. Plus, for us, the main highlight might be tasting Jerusalem Coucous which isn’t commonly used in these meal boxes. However, I’d like to compare them a little to orzo and thats a compliment because I really like Jerusalem couscous and would consider looking at more recipes for it.

Chicken & Udon Stir Fry
with Chinese Broccoli

Udon, chicken, stir-fry plays exactly to what I like. I love learning how to make some of these dishes as I don’t have a really extensive know of Asian cuisine even though I’m Chinese and probably should. I get the idea of how to make many different Chinese meals but I do love Udon noodles and Chinese Broccoli so this one was pretty good. The spices and the simplicity of putting this together all turned out very delicious.

Homemade Merguez with Herbed Yogurt Sauce
& Bulgar Salad

The husband was the one that got to eat both of the meals here. I did help with putting together the bulgar salad and doing the preparation work. He is a fan of merguez so suffice to say that he enjoyed the meaty part of this a lot. The bulgar was different for him. It did seem like a fresh sort of salad with a mixture of bulgar along with fresh vegetables. However, the yogurt herbed sauce didn’t really come into play here as we found some fabric in the yogurt and while I was positive it wasn’t hair, he took the safer measure to not eat it as we didn’t know where it came from. Something perhaps for Goodfood to be a little bit more careful about when putting together their boxes especially when dealing with food related business.

Whisky Rubbed Pork Chop with Scalloped Potatoes
Green Salad & Sweet Onion Vinaigrette

Finally, the last meal was this whisky rubbed pork chop. I prepared most of the meal and made the scalloped potatoes however, my husband took care of cooking the pork chops. Thanks to holidays, these last two meals were more of a collaborative effort to make which is always fun. He had the salad and the scalloped potatoes while I had the pork chop paired it with some cooked romaine lettuce. Scalloped potatoes are quite interesting to make to be honest and it was pretty fun and probably more efficient with a mandolin which I didn’t so I had to just thinly slice the potatoes with a knife so there was some uneven parts. However, the whisky spice blend here had a bit of heat but was very flavorful.

Overall, four good meals. It was definitely an educational box with preserved lemons, Jerusalem couscous and scalloped potatoes making appearances.

Pork Chops in Zesty Barbecue Sauce

Its not exactly baking but I managed to get some cooking in.  I promise baking will go up this week! Its tradition for Valentine’s week and we’re nearing the last week of that.

Saturday night, I gave the choice of what to eat and my boyfriend chose pork chops and he described a sauce that he wanted so I flipped through my cookbooks and found this one in Looneyspoons.  Don’t you just love that book? Because I do! I haven’t had one failed recipe from it yet and thats pretty amazing! 🙂

I promised already in yesterday post that I’d post up the recipe so in case you missed that post, here’s how it turned out!

Pork Chops in Zesty Barbecue Sauce

Of course, it was more of an adaptation from Looneyspoons recipe since this is meant to be done on a grill but I simmered it instead but I used her way to make the sauce. I’ll put their recipe but include the modifications afterwards.

Sauce Ingredients for 4 pork loin chops (I upped some of the sauce portions as I made 6)

1/2 cup ketchup
2 tbsp freshly squeeze lemon juice
2 tbsp molasses
2 tbsp minced shallots
1 1/4 tsp chili powder
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

How to do this is pretty straight forward.  I first combined all the sauce ingredients in a bowl and mixed it thoroughly.  Afterwards, I put some olive oil in the pan and then sizzled the pork chops a bit first on both sides before putting in the sauce and lowering the heat to let it simmer with the cover on.

Now for changes.  There are only two small ones.  One was that I removed the chili powder as I can’t take spicy so I don’t own it at home.  Second is that I replaced dried rosemary with Herbes de Provence.  I love using that to replace some types of herbs because it adds a beautiful taste.

I had no idea how this would turn out during the cooking process but we loved it.  Definitely a keeper! It makes a thicker sauce and a bit in the sweet and sour flavor.  I think the lemon really brings out the zesty factor (as expected).  Its just really awesome: simple, easy and relatively quick; my type of cooking. Love it! 🙂

Saturday Dinner: Pork Chops with Sweet Potato Fries!

We don’t usually eat a lot of pork at my place.  Its not as healthy and its more fattening than the normal.  Another thing is that I’ve never actually made any pork chops but my boyfriend has mastered them pretty well.  So there I was on Friday night and trying to figure out what to make for Saturday and my grocery list.  Pork chops are on special so coincidentally there is also the “#1 Readers Fave” being Marla’s Maple Pork in my Looneyspoons cookbook. So voila, the menu for Saturday night was set.  Its nice to eat in on Saturday night and watch a movie (you know its horror because I haven’t gotten around to posting up the Horror Marathon).  For once, there was no parties, no ordering in, no take out, just cooking, eating and relaxing.

Here are Marla’s  Maple Chops:

Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:

1/2 lbs (680g) pork tenderloin

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1 tbsp each reduced sodium soy sauce and ketchup

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

2 tsp grated orange zest

1 1/2 tsp each curry powder and ground coriander

2 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Directions:

1. Trim pork of all visible fat.  Place pork in a large, heavy duty bag, resealable plastic bag.  Whisk together all remaining ingredients in a medium bowl.  Pour marinade over pork and seal bag. Turn bag several times to coat pork evenly.  Marinate in refrigerator for 1 hour.

2. Transfer pork and marinade to a small roasting pan or baking dish.  Roast, uncovered, at 350F for 40 minutes.  Pork should be slightly pink in middle.

3. Let pork stand for 5 minutes before slicing.  Slice thinly.  Drizzle extra sauce over pork and serve immediately.

I changed it a bit.  I bought loin chops instead of a gigantic slab of meat so no slicing afterwards required.  I had all the ingredients pretty much.  I used normal mustard though because Dijon mustard is on the spicy side and my stomach is too sensitive for it.  Also, I marinaded it in the fridge for 1/2 hour.  I never read that before I do it so I don’t budget enough time. One more thing, 45 minutes in the oven for me because we don’t get pink meat, only well done.  Still, it turned out smelling delicious and tasting so good.

So with the pork chops, I made some sweet potato fries.  They were agreed upon last weekend that I’d do something with sweet potatoes.

This was incredibly easy to make.  First, wash the sweet potatoes (you’ll need about 3 medium ones).  Pat them dry before cutting them into wedges about 1/2 inch thick.  Don’t count on my cutting.  its not too sophisticated, but do follow the general idea of it.  Don’t cut into wedges that are too big.  After that, toss about  1 tbsp of olive oil and some seasoning (I use vegetable seasoning) and if your seasoning doesn’t include salt and pepper already then put that in also.  Make sure it evenly coats all the wedges.

Arrange them into a single layer on a baking sheet or tray. I didn’t oil it up because I used aluminum foil under it.  Bake at 450F for 20-25 minutes, turning them over halfway through cooking time.

These turned out pretty good also.  Saturday night meal was a great turnout.  It was really delicious.

Do you like pork chops? How about sweet potatoes? Are you going to give these a shot? Have you ever done another recipe similar to it?