Homemade Sushi

Beans with homemade salsa and guac

Green Curry

Venison, Kale, and Sweet Potatoes

Tuna Bites

Cashew Fried Rice

Baked Mac and Cheese and Roasted Vegetables

Lentils

Baked Bolognese

Corn Fritters

Corn fritters and baked sweet potato. (I altered the recipe a bit by adding more flour, and I wished that I'd added a bit more salt.) This meal is cheap, cheap, cheap. It was our penance for going out to eat three days in a row, but it was so good that it really wasn't any hardship.  

Spinach Alfredo

Pasta with Alfredo sauce from a jar, fresh spinach, capers, and a little left-over chicken. This took 20 minutes, tops, and only dirtied one pan. They can't all be winners. 

Homemade Pizza

Homemade pizza with whole-wheat crust, turkey pepperoni, and mushrooms. (Turkey pepperoni doesn't taste funny, I promise. It does, however, eliminate the little pools of grease that accumulate on top of regular pepperoni.) If you have a stand mixer, you should be making pizza dough--the dough hook does the kneading for you, and in half the time! Now if it would only roll it out for you. I made the dough ahead of time, let it rise, punched it down, then put it in the refrigerator until I was ready to make my pizzas. 

Blackened Tuna Alfredo

Tuna steak, blackened. Pasta with Alfredo sauce from a jar, fresh spinach, and capers. 

Winter Veggies

Roasted winter vegetables and loaded baked potato. 

Homemade BLT

How to make a BLT: 

Proof yeast. Mix yeast, butter, honey, eggs, and flour (whole wheat and white) to make two loaves of honey whole-wheat bread. Knead. 

While dough is rising, go to a Polish meat market, your choice, on Manhattan Avenue and buy a slab of bacon. Dziekuje. 

Punch dough down, shape two loaves. Cover and let rise again. 

Bake bread. 

While bread is cooling, go to Sun-Hee Farms on Manhattan Avenue and buy a tomato and Romaine lettuce. 

Slice slab of bacon, then fry. 

Slice tomato. Wash and tear lettuce. 

Assemble sandwich: tomato, bacon, lettuce. 

Possible additions: soy mayo, avocado, brie. 

Enjoy! 

Total time: 4.25 hours, mostly unattended. 

Superbowl

C made his Polish-Mexican stew for Superbowl Sunday. It involves kielbasa, beans, and corn. Definitely boy food. 

Green Salad with Garbanzos and Olives

Salad and bread only counts as dinner after you've stuffed yourself with leftover chicken and pastry for lunch. 

Chicken and Pastry

Homemade chicken and pastry, made with (not to brag or anything) homemade chicken stock. This might be the most delicious un-photogenic food ever. I cobbled together the recipe from a couple of sources. 

Tofu Teriyaki

Tofu Teriyaki deluxe box from Sakura 6. I would like to eat this every day, please. 

Roast Chicken, The Fun Way

I roasted two chickens using this method, which I first read about here. I don't think I'll ever cook a whole chicken any other way. I did cheat and put a quarter of a lemon, clove of garlic and a spring of rosemary in each chicken. 

We ate most of one chicken then de-boned the other to use in chicken salad sandwiches and chicken and pastry. I also saved the skin 'n bones for homemade chicken stock.

I cooked up these as a side dish because they had been languishing in the fridge. 

Chickpea Smash Sandwich Part Two

The Chickpea Smash sandwich just might be too healthy to be satisfying. After dinner last night I nearly ordered a basket of waffle fries with no intention of sharing them at The Habitat. So for dinner tonight I remedied the problem by taking leftover chickpea smash, adding mayo, making a patty, and frying it in vegetable oil. Not exactly low-cal, but at least I wasn't ready to knock people down for french fries two hours later. 

Chickpea Smash Sandwich

I made a Chickpea Smash using this recipe, which was inspired by this restaurant. 

Pigeon Peas and Rice

Pigeon Peas and Jasmine Rice. I sort of followed the recipe on the bag of dried peas, which means cooking them with bacon, onions, and red pepper. Cooking them from scratch takes for-ev-er. This is the second time we've made this and each time we can't wait any longer and eat them when the peas are still a little crispy. We must plan ahead next time. 

Vegetable Lasagna

As long as I have a caesar salad to go with it, I don't think I'll ever get tired of vegetable lasagna. Which is good, because we still have several servings in the fridge. 

Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Omelet

Smoked salmon (gravlax actually) from Acme fish, and cream cheese in an omelet. 

A great breakfast place in Atlanta that my sister takes us to has a smoked salmon and scrambled eggs combo that they call the sassy scramble. 

This is one of those dinners you eat when you don't think you have anything in the fridge that could pass as dinner. 

Tofu Pancake

Tofu pancake at vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant Lan Cafe in the East Village. 

C's Seared Tuna

C made his sesame seed seared tuna. I made jasmine rice. Chinese Musician made steamed broccoli. 

bread from the neighborhood Polish bakery

I had a big lunch, so dinner tonight was a slice of apricot-cheese bread from Jubilatka. I don't know what kind of cheese they use, but it ends up tasting like cheesecake. The bakery is practically right across the street from our apartment, so we can't even pretend that walking there and back will make a dent in the calories here. 

Eggplant over Rice

Stir-fried eggplant in a sweet/salty/spicy sauce* with green onions and cabbage over Jasmine rice. 

*Blend rice vinegar, honey, soy sauce, hot chili sauce, oil, fresh grated ginger, and pressed garlic, then add a little bit of cornstarch. 

BBQ sauce stand-off

Pulled pork sandwiches and slaw. Instead of mixing up a vinegary, eastern North Carolina BBQ sauce, which would have taken time, we just sprinkled one sandwich with Texas Pete and the other with Sriracha. They were both good. 

To make the pork, we, by which I mean C, trimmed the fat and rubbed it with a Mexican seasoning spice mixture. Cooking a whole pork shoulder is not for the faint of heart, meaning anyone who is squeamish about roasting a chicken should probably not even look at a pork shoulder in the grocery store. 

Potato and Leek Casserole

Green salad with Caesar dressing and a casserole made with potatoes, leeks, and lots of stinky gruyere cheese. C and I went to the produce market and C-Town grocery and stocked up to ward off the budget-sucking evils of eating out. 

Tacos, Tuna and Steak

Tacos, with leftover steak and tuna. I never realized just how often we eat tacos until I started documenting dinner. Since Christmas we've made our way through a tall stack of corn tortillas. 

Polish Food

C and I finally tried one of the Polish restaurants in our new neighborhood. I ordered the viener (their spelling) schnitzel and mashed potatoes. I wasn't sure what kind of meat would turn up. Pork? Veal? It turned out to be chicken. With an egg on top. Not pictured was the vegetable, which was a little combo plate of saurkraut, pickled red cabbage, shredded carrots soaked in something sweet, and a teeny bit of salad with iceberg lettuce. We spent the entire meal continuing to look over the menu, and I know exactly what I'm getting next time: farmer cheese pirogi's, fried, and a side of red cabbage. Maybe I'll get a blintz for dessert, too. 

Homemade Sushi and Rolls

Sushi with veggies and tuna. 

Steak Tacos

Tacos with skirt steak, shredded cabbage, tomatoes, green onions, and guac. 

Leftover Lasagna

Lasagna from yesterday, plus caesar salad. I love to cook, but I also love eating without having to cook first. 

Vegetable Lasagna

Vegetable lasagna. Well, vegetable lasagna made with this sauce. 

Sweet Potato and Collards

Baked sweet potato and collard greens. Before I seem too virtuous, let me admit right now that C and I went to Peter Pan doughnuts for breakfast. 

Cashew Fried Rice

A much spicier rice bowl for dinner this time. C's cashew fried rice has portobello mushrooms, carrots, soy sauce, and other ingredients that he keeps secret from me. This dish was inspired by the cashew fried rice at Thai Moon on Ocracoke Island. Thai Moon's version had bits of red pepper that are the hottest thing I've ever eaten to this day. On our honeymoon we ate at Thai Moon repeatedly.  

Rice Bowl

Jasmine rice, just the meal for a stomachache. 

New Year's Day Dinner

These spicy chicken wings were just an appetizer to the traditional New Year's dinner guaranteed to bring wealth and happiness in the coming year--collard greens and black-eyed peas. We need the luck so badly this year the greens and black-eyed peas were long gone before I remembered to get a photo. 

Seared Tuna

Tuna, coated with black sesame seeds and seared. Jasmine rice and broccoli rabe. It was my first time cooking or eating broccoli rabe. I don't think I'll be cooking or eating it again--too bitter. I hope C will eat the leftovers in the fridge. 

We made tuna bites for an appetizer. 

Cut tuna into bite sized pieces. Marinate for a few hours in Texas Pete hot sauce. Dredge in House-Autry seafood breader. Fry in oil. Make a dippin' sauce by blending honey, sriracha, soy sauce, and a tiny bit of sesame oil. 

After dinner photo by C.