Decided to try making jerk chicken. I was hoping to find a whole cut-up chicken but, while there was lots chicken, there were no cut up ones so I ended up with a whole roaster.
I used a jerk recipe from The Caribbean Pot. The chicken was marinated overnight with a paste of garlic, ginger, onion, lime and orange juice, soy sauce, honey, chiles, ginger, scallion, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, and thyme. Served with black eyed peas and sautéed cabbage. It had a nice heat.
Marie calanders chicken pot pie .With leftover broccoli rabe . Damn it was cold up here today. Had to finish a small outside job . Cold hands even with gloves. Got home . Relaxed . Leveled it all out with pretty much non cooking and wine . Cheers. 
Another Lunar New Years dinner, bought, not prepared at home. Vegan longevity noodles and smashed cucumber from Fat Choy on Broome St. in Manhattan.
For all the Chinese cooking my BF and I do, it is with irony that tonight’s meal was a BLT. We had been going hard with Chinese/Asian meals in the last couple weeks, and have been on a brief hiatus from such meals.
Well, actually it was a B.L.A.T tonight. Used spinach instead of lettuce and added a garlic-peppercorn aioli. Truffle fries (air fryer) with Pecorino Romano on the side. I’ve long been in the “truffle flavoring is overrated” camp, but it is pretty amazing with bacon.
To drink was Benham’s vodka on the rocks. It normally retails for $30 a bottle but my go-to liquor store had a special “red tag clearance” sticker for $12 today, so even with skepticism I felt it was worth a shot. Ended up being comparable to Stoli. I was impressed.
A couple of recent meals:
One of B’s favorite meals as a kid was stuffed bell peppers (not a dish I grew up with…I had it once as a kid at a friend’s house and didn’t care for them). Well, I put my own spin on them and made them with poblanos stuffed with Rotel tomatoes, brown rice, crumbled tofu, and black beans and they were pretty good! B ate 'em up and the leftovers the next day. Spring Onion enjoyed stuffing them (but, of course, did not eat them). I served them up with fluffy baked potatoes with a side of roasted/charred broccoli and topped with leftover haydari from Magic Bites in Arlington.
By the way, I recently received a cooking -related email (can’t remember which), heralding a “new” technique for opening up baked potatoes so that they retain their fluffiness. Out of curiosity, I clicked through and all the guy did was cross-hatch the top with a fork and then squished the potato from both ends to pop it open. I was like “huh? This is ‘new?’ I don’t think so. Isn’t this technique as old as the hills?”
I recently made Smitten Kitchen’s cabbage and farro soup. B was a bit suspicious of it but he loved it. Good thing because I made a huge pot. I also made no-knead bread which turned out to be more like a ciabatta rather than a big puffy country loaf. Too cold in the house (we like keeping the thermostat hovering around 62-64F in the winter). Well, at least it made for decent salmon burger sandwiches.
Lunar New Year meal was nothing special (I didn’t have noodles, dumplings, or Korean rice cakes on hand and no time to run out to the neighborhood Japanese market or to HMart). A mix of real breaded chicken and Quorn “chicken” for B’s katsu (full-on Quorn for me), sides of shredded cabbage and rice. There was Korean miyuk guk (seaweed soup) but no photo. Happy Year of the Tiger, everyone!
DH asked for prawn cocktail.
Modified version of NYT Braised white beans with greens , taking many liberties. Used canned light kidney beans, collard greens, no cheese, sautéed chicken feta sausage for B. We sopped up the broth with my leftover sad unintentional ciabatta. This will go in the usual rotation but it’s not a whole lot different from something I already make. I’m not a confident off-the-cuff cook but I like recipes that lend themselves to adaptation. 
Finished off the cabbage farro soup. Spaghetti and TJs party-sized meatballs for Spring Onion.
Thanks for the recipe link! Sounds good. Agree, no reinventing the wheel.
Tonight was TJ’s butternut squash triangolini with browned butter, fried sage, caramelized/crisped onions, and toasted pecans. Very good. Side of “cacio e pepe” Brussels - except I only had Grana Padano. Still good. Green salad with raspberry-Dijon white wine vinaigrette.
The Sprout wasn’t home last night and asked if we could postpone our Lunar New Year dinner to tonight. Being the good mother I said of course.
One of our favorite dishes, at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants (Shanghai Bun in Matawan for you folks from NJ) is their Spicy Beef Noodle Soup. I again used a recipe from Woks of Life. It is a rich beef stock primarily flavored with Shaoxing wine, ginger, onions, tomatoes, garlic, Szechuan peppercorns, star anise (I didn’t have enough so added some Chinese five spice powder), and Toban Djan/chii bean paste. I love that the recipe specifically tells you the soup must sit for at least an hour before serving, and to make sure you bring it back up to a boil. As a counterbalance, I also made bean sprout salad and spicy cucumbers.
The tiger was the mascot at The Sprout’s college so it seemed appropriate to use these bowls I got for her while she was a student.
Nice! And did the sprout enjoy all or some?
Thanks. Yes I believe she did. I know she thought the bowls were a nice touch.
Love the prawn cocktail. Will be having them when the weather warms up another 40 degrees.
Beautiful meal and/but I WANY THOSE BOWLS !!!
Spanish, sort of, pizza. Brushed the crust with garlic oil and then spread with blitzed tomatoes. Kind of like pan con tomate. Manchego cheese, Mexican chorizo, onions, paquillo peppers and green olives. Another sprinkle of manchego and a dusting of dried oregano. Salad with pickled carrots, avocado, onion, sherry vinegar dressing.
Chicken and cheese enchiladas with guajillo chile sauce and sour cream, refried beans, rice.
Thanks. I bought the bowls at Williams Sonoma a while ago. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like they still sell them.
A no-cook night tonight after a long day. Couple of sandwiches which I brought home from work and my one contribution: a “salad” with spinach, leftover Basmati rice, chickpeas, onion, pepitas, and balsamic vinaigrette.
JW Red on the rocks to drink. Splash of Fever Tree ginger ale.
How was that Old Fashioned? I could pull it off but I don’t have agave nectar. Do you think simple syrup would work?
I like it, the mezcal adds a little smokiness. I think simple syrup would work fine, maybe a rich simple would work better though, or even honey perhaps? The hard part is flaming the orange peel, which I tried to do with a stick burner and gave up on because I cut the peel too long.
