What's Cooking: Week 1

I love our tradition of picking a cookbook to cook a new recipe from each year.
This year was Fresh Food Fast by Martha Stewart. We started out with good intentions, but after much discussion, I have decided to proclaim Fresh Food Fast dead. Not because the cookbook fall short (because it doesn't), but our cooking style has changed.

We are home a lot more. Cooking a lot more.
 And I happen to have 2 major distractions from said cookbook.
1) Pinterest
2) I subscribed to about 6 cooking magazines this year, and each provides pages of inspiration that lure me away from my stack of cookbooks.

And I want to use this blog to showcase what our week looks like and share the major hits (and the major misses). Paint a realistic picture of what life is like with two full-time parental units, and a baby.

So I introduce our weekly blog 'column': What's Cookin'!

Monday night we re-made the Sweet Potato Burgers that I wrote about a few weeks ago. Since it is a favorite of Miss Matilda, it makes for very useful leftovers. We also made a side dish of the Tex Mex Bean Salad. This seemed like a super fun new recipe, but in reality it was a knock-off of Texas Cavier. Still delicious though and made great left-overs.

Tuesday night brought a new recipe that we found off of Pinterest. Caprese Pizza Toasts. They were SUPER EASY. SUPER QUICK. A perfect weeknight meal, paired with a big old salad.

To be honest, I'm not sure why it is called' Pizza Toast" because it doesn't have Pizza flavor at all, but it didn't matter to us because they were very good.

We tend to always have one night a week that ends up being a bust. Not a bust in the sense that dinner is terrible. But a bust in the sense that we get home, look at the chalkboard to see what is in-store for dinner and either realize we forgot to take meat out, or we are just too tired to consider making a big meal. That was Wednesday night. We made Brinner. Our stand-by. Frittata with asparagus, red pepper and feta with hashbrowns. Easy. Quick. Low maintenance.

The real gem of the week was a new recipe we tried from the Food Network Magazine. These will be made again (and again and again). If you are looking for a great new dish to try that breaks you out of the status quo, make this: Indian Chicken Wraps.

1 1-inch piece ginger, peeled
1 serrano chile pepper, halved, seeded and rough chopped
1/2 small onion, rough chopped (we omitted this)
1/2 teaspoon of cround cumin
salt
1/2 cup low-fat plain yogurt (we used greek)
2 teaspoons lime juice
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 Tbsn vegetable oil
2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken (skin removed)
2 medium carrots, shredded
Naan Bread or pocket pitas (we found amazing Naan at Costco)
**We also added a good amount of Red Pepper, rough-chopped to add more veg).

1). Combine the ginger, chile, onion, cumin and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a mini food processor and pulse to make a thick paste (or finely chop and mash with the flat side of a knife). Mix the yogurt, lime juice, and cilantro in a bowl, combine with salt. Cover and chill until ready to use.
2) Heat oil in skillet over med-high heat. Add the ginger-chile paste and cook, stirring, until most of the liquid has evaporated and the mixture is slightly toasted, about 5 minutes. Stir in the chicken, carrots, salt, and 1/2 cup of water and continue to cook, stirring until the sauce is thick and the chicken is heated through (about 2 more minutes) Season with salt.
3) Spoon chicken down middle of bread. Drizzle with yogurt sauce and roll up.

Enjoy!! Let me know if you make it. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.