Battle of Ingredients #13 The First BBQ of 2019

Its been a while since out last Battle of Ingredients. As usual, we have our Winter through summer months of busy and crazy schedules so our off season if you can call it that. We are back to doing Battle of Ingredients in the home setting, which is always fun.

The First Barbecue of 2019 had a change of scenery from our previous barbecue settings and that had to do with the purchase of a new one on our behalf. Its still early in the season however with the long weekend, we were able to do a nice little meal to feed our 6 adults and a 1 kid crew.

Before we start, I’ll apologize that pictures are a bit incomplete so please bear with me as I try to add more in the description.

Wine

The wine for this Battle was provided by our friend as usual. This was the bottle left over from the previous battle. It was a nice match as a rosé wine called Pétale de Rose. Its a bit on the drier side but its pretty smooth in its end notes.

BBQ Food 

First up, this was my BBQ food ready to go on the grill. There’s some skewers of marinated chicken, some sliced zucchini and some baby Shanghai bok choy. Right before the grill, the zucchini got its seasoning of the simple stuff: salt, pepper and olive oil. Shanghai bok choy had no season other than oil to prevent sticking (unless the husband put some then I can’t remember).

The Chicken Skewers were done fairly quickly. For the these skewers, I used:

• chicken thighs
• garlic
• smoked salt (from Les As du Fumoir)
• Plumée poultry spice (from La Pincée)

We marinated the chicken in the fridge for about 3 hours (at least) before we skewered them and got them cooking. The chicken skewers turned out really well. We hadn’t had a lot of luck with bringing out the flavor when we used the smoked salt but it works really well on the grill. I really liked this spontaneous marinade for the chicken.

Sorry for the lack of a more focused picture. Phoebe brought us the more intricate stuff with seasoned steaks which are under the Portobello mushrooms.

Her steaks were marinated with:

• salt,
• oregano,
• rosemary
• homegrown fresh basil.

I don’t have the end result. We all forgot to take a picture and I thought I had taken one when I didn’t. However, the mushrooms were great and the steaks were also marinated really good also.

Non-BBQ Additions

Pasta Salad

In addition to the BBQ food, I was worried that there wouldn’t be enough food so I added a little carbs to our meal but making a pasta salad.

The ingredients are:

• Rotini
• Pedon’s More Than Pasta – Green Pea Rotini
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Orange and Yellow Peppers
• olive oil

We kept an Italian salad dressing (normal Kraft one) on the side for anyone that wanted to use it.

The pasta salad is pretty straight-forward. It turned as expected. The only new trial here was the Green Pea Rotini which has a very odd texture. We noticed that when cooking it more, it actually got more rubbery instead of mushier (which is what happens with some gluten-free pasta when overcooked). The texture was really odd in the sense. Pushing that aside, everything else works well. I left all the seasoning and sauces to however everyone liked it so just kept it as a base salad to be modified as desired.

Dessert

No recipe for this one as this was brought by our friends who also brought the wine. They are attempting the world of baking and brought us some dairy-free soy-based apple muffins. It was pretty decent.

That’s it for this Battle of Ingredients!
We are working on the date for the next one so things are picking up again in the Battle front.

I apologize again on the rusty organization skills and forgetting to take pictures.

Goodfood Recap #34

And we’re almost back to normal on the Goodfood meals. Its pretty much back to every other week for this next little while until we hit April where it just wouldn’t work out for our schedule most probably. Either way, this box had a lot of recipes that we were trying for the first time both just by ourselves or even as a meal.

Cod Cakes
with Potato Wedges, Roasted Garlic Aioli & Green Salad

If we talk about fish, we eat cod so very little. I can’t say that this meal turned out very close to what the meal looked like on the recipe card. I always have issues with their instructions on making those oven-baked potatoes. The cod cakes didn’t really cook to what it looked it. The taste however was alright. I just can’t say that it reached exactly what I’d normally like to eat frequently. Plus, I have to say that cod cakes are really my thing.

Brazilian Chicken Stew
with Toasted Coconut Rice, Fresh Tomatoes & Wilted Spinach

My husband loved this meal so much. I can see why because it is a very comforting meal especially when we made this during some colder days. We don’t normally make stews especially when its Brazilian, its close to zero chance. The spices here along with the whole recipe itself was easy to cook and also tasted wonderful.

Chicken Breasts
with Roasted Purple Brussel Sprouts, Crispy Shallots & Spiced Jasmine Rice

Both of us loved this one equally a lot. Everything jived so well here plus the taste was delectable. We have those crispy shallots which gave it this lovely texture. We had purple brussel sprouts which suffered a little in the over due to those instructions they give.  I need to adjust it next time. I say that every time but I just keep forgetting.

Steaks with Charred Cipollini Onion Petals,
Sauteed Green Beans, Snap Peas & Pearl Couscous

This meal was pretty good also. I get the onions and they are quite unique but I personally don’t eat onions that are such huge pieces. Its the only thing I’m picky about so I don’t think its a bad thing. Everything else here is great. I got this because it uses pearl couscous which is the type of couscous that I like the most but is not in a lot of the recipes here. I should seriously go and get some at the supermarket. The beef is pretty tasty as well and it has to do with the spices being very nice.

That’s it for this recap!
Our faves were the two chicken meals. They just worked out in the whole balance.
Plus they are on the easier and more efficient side to put together which also gets extra points.

Recap: Goodfood #12

It’s time for the next recap of Goodfood!

I seriously can’t reiterate how much I’ve been loving these boxes. In fact, you’ll see that we are absolutely surprised at how some of the more experimental choices have truly shocked us in how much we’ve enjoyed them. Without further ado, let’s see what we got this past week!

Olive Crusted Haddock with Barley Risotto and Roasted Fennel

First up is always the fish dish because fish needs to be made within 3 days of receiving it. Usually I like to do it within the next day. We don’t eat haddock frequently but this tastes really nice. The olive brings a interesting twist to it. My husband loves olives so it was right up his alley. Props to the barley risotto which is always nice because whenever I go out, the traditional risotto will always have milk or cheese in it and this dish is lactose-free. We’ve made fennel in a few ways now and it is one of those vegetables that takes some getting used to, however, I do say that till now, the roasted version might just be more preferred way.

Smoked Paprika Chicken with Kale Lollipops and Crispy Chickpeas

The overall favorite of this week’s selections goes to this one. There are some nice elements here. I like that we had to roast the chickpeas and season them. The chicken was spiced with smoke paprika and was fried on the pan and then put into the oven. The kale lollipops which was pretty much baby kale actually works the best in the oven. Because of everything have to get into the oven at different times but the times for flipping and such actually worked to our advantage to double duty the oven and cut down some cooking time. Its a fairly simple dish that yielded some delicious results.

Cuban Spiced Steak with Mango & Cucumber Salsa

Next up is the easiest dish to make in the whole box. We don’t eat steak a lot nowadays. Not only is it expensive but red meats are getting harder to digest in general. This one did have some nice flavors. I had to take it easy on the salsa and ate mostly the mangos since I don’t eat raw vegetables. However, I’m not sure if it was the meal or not but I believe whatever cuban spices are, something didn’t sit too well for myself. It could be the spices or the red meat itself so I’m not going to blame the dish because it is good and I have a very sensitive digestive system. However, my husband did seem to be fine and he really liked it as well.

Pork Banh Mi with Pickled Vegetables and Spicy Mayo

Last one was the one I was looking forward to making the most. I’ve been eating banh mi’s since I was a kid. The fact that I couldn’t eat raw foods stopped me from buying them for the last 10 years. This one included pickling vegetables which sounded fun. While still raw, I’m actually pretty okay with pickled vegetables and to be fair, I exceeded their at least 10 minutes requirement quite a bit and I think that did the trick. The longest part for this recipe was the preparation because there was the grating of the daikon and the carrots. Then the thinly sliced cucumbers. I also didn’t make the meat patties as flat as it should have been so we ended up slicing them in half to fit the entire ciabatta bread. However, let me tell you: it was all worth it because it was so incredibly delicious. I’d make this again in a heartbeat. Its not exactly like how the ones I used to eat but it was still very tasty.

Overall…this week’s selections were pretty decent. A lot of new favorites and we liked pretty much all the meals and loved at least two of them. A few inspirational dishes that we’d like to try again if we gather up all the ingredients. Some nice ideas here and well-balanced flavors!