Bringing inspiration and ideas to better manage your home kitchen
Groceries are expensive. Inflation over the last four years has been atrocious. I haven’t looked for a couple of years, but around that time I took a peek at the deli counter at our local grocery store. Turkey breast was $15-16/lb. That’s more expensive than …
The start of a new month is a good time to be thinking about budgeting. We’re not quite there, but it’s approaching. In previous budgeting posts, I hinted toward some of the things we’ve learned along this journey and tips we’ve found that helped us …
Dumplings are a fun thing to make when you feel like you want something takeout like or want to make something a little fun for a crowd. This recipe has a sauce that is SO GOOD! We usually double the sauce recipe because it’s that tasty (the recipe here shows doubled quantities already). This is definitely a “go-to” in our recipe book. We enjoy it pretty regularly. I hope you enjoy!
Make the sauce by combining all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.
Place the cabbage in a large bowl with the salt, toss well and let sit for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, squeeze as much water out of the cabbage as possible and return to bowl.
To the cabbage, add the pork, chives, soy sauce, ginger, sesame oil and use your hands to mix it all together well.
Take half of the dumpling wrappers and separate individually on a clean, dry counter. Fill a small dish with warm water. Place a teaspoon worth of filling in the middle of each wrapper and wet the outer rim of the wrapper with the warm water. Fold the wrapper over itself making a half circle and then pinch the wrapper together, crimping/pleating every 1/4 of an inch or so. If you have a partner helping you, once you fold ~15 dumplings they can start the cooking process. If you're on your own, continue with the process of folding the dumplings covering with a dry clean towel in between batches.
Once you're ready to cook, place a large non-stick skillet over medium to medium high heat and add some oil. When the oil is hot and shimmering, add 12-15 dumplings to the pan and cooke about 3 minutes without moving the pan, until the dumplings are golden brown on the bottom. Next add 2 TBSP water to the bottom of the pan and cover immediately. If you don't have a lid, you can use foil or a sheet pan. Wait unitl the water has evaporated and then add another 2 TSBP of water and cover. Repeat this process one last time with 2 TSBP of water and allow the dumplings to steam until the water evaporates. Transfer to a plate and repeat the process until all are cooked.
Serve the dumplings with the black pepper - scallion sauce.
Inspired by: Joanne Chang & Karen Akunowicz
Street tacos are like this elusive mirage of something that you know has the possibility of being incredible, but isn’t always easy to reach that level of deliciousness. We’ve tried many versions of street tacos and never get it quite right. We’ve used ground beef, …
Birthdays, and every other milestone or accomplishment, are meant to be celebrated! Other than the occasional batch of cookies or throwing together an apple or blackberry crisp for dessert, we don’t make a ton of desserts throughout the year. Sugar is probably one of the …
Salads can make a great meal. Especially when it starts to get warm out, or if you’ve had a lot of heavy meals or just been eating without a lot of fresh ingredients in your diet. They often hit the spot. I try to target one salad per week in my meal planning. This helps balance things out a bit and brings some variety. But it’s not easy to find great salad recipes that can stand in as a meal. I can assure you this is a great salad recipe. We agree that its our favorite. Something about the combination of grilled vegetables, grilled chicken, and a tangy French vinaigrette. This is one of those recipes where the combination is much greater than the sum of the parts. So do yourself a favor and give it a try – it’s packed full of healthy ingredients.
First, season or marinate the chicken thighs and allow to sit as long as desired. I've done a basic salt & pepper seasoning and grilled right away, but you can use whatever preferred seasoning or marinade you like.
Grill the chicken thighs and vegetables (mushrooms, onion, and bell peppers) until cooked through and nicely charred. For this recipe, I prefer grilled chicken to get the charred flavor. The veggies do well on the grill too, but if you're competing for grill space, you can just as easily broil the veggies in the oven until their nicely blackened around the edges.
Prepare the hard boiled eggs and cook the bacon until crispy.
To make the vinaigrette, whisk all the ingredients together except the olive oil and then whisk the olive oil into the remaining ingredients until it's nicely emulsified.
To assemble the salad, place spinach in a large mixing bowl and toss with some of the dressing to coat the greens nicely before topping. Transfer the dressed spinach to a plate and top with chopped (or sliced hard boiled egg), chopped or crumbled bacon bits, sliced veggies, and sliced chicken. You can drizzle additional dressing on top and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
Inspired by: Feasting At Home
Curry is something that I never really got into until later in life. It always seemed so vague and broad of a topic. Regional curries, colors of curries, powdered curries, curry pastes … where do you even start? Aside from that, I hadn’t really eaten …
I’m always on the lookout for recipes that call for humble ingredients and use them really well. Coq au vin, translated “chicken in wine,” is a traditional French dish. I’ve only made coq au vin twice – once a white wine recipe and the second …
Week 2 of this 4-week series brings me to a recipe that I can say is actually mine. I made it up with inspiration from a couple of different food experiences, but I’ve not seen this recipe on the internet anywhere, with the exception of the sauce.
There’s something about Asian inspired dishes that are really satisfying in the middle of the week. Sunday is for supper – something classic, something comforting, and not fussy. Things like roasted chicken or braised meats. I like to make things on Sundays that are more difficult to make on a weeknight. And then Mondays through Thursdays, I generally shoot for something that comes together a little more quickly and has leftovers. Leftovers are what we rely on for our lunches. Every so often, something Asian switches things up a bit. My friend and I used to joke when we’d regularly get together for weekend dinner nights – “are we making Asian or Mexican?” Because we’d always gravitate toward one or the other.
This recipe is filling, comes together quickly, and is balanced with lots of protein, vegetable, and carbohydrate. And the sauce is just the kicker you need to make it satisfying.
Combine all sauce ingredients in medium mixing bowl and set aside.
Place chicken thighs in a large Ziploc bag with 1/3-1/2 cup of the sauce. Let sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes or marinade in refrigerator for longer. When chicken is ready, make rice in a rice cooker. Grill chicken thighs, getting nice char around the edges.
Toss broccoli florets in olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Roast in the oven until edges are dark brown/black and not overcooked (I use the bottom rack at 425F).
Once rice, chicken, and broccoli are done, scramble eggs.
To build the bowl, place some rice down, then broccoli, then egg, and chicken. Drizzle with sauce.
Gochujang: this can be a tricky paste to find with clean ingredients. Instead of using an Asian market, I've found Trader Joe's Gochujang to be delicious and clean.
Inspired by: Half-baked Harvest (for the sauce)
One of my husband’s hobbies, skills, and crafts is bread making. As I’m typing this, my laptop “stand” is a stack of 4 bread making books detailing the process in different ways. I will have him on here to share his sourdough breadmaking and bagel …