Well, to echo the great W., “Mission Accomplished.” Last week, despite the odds I managed to cook at home every night for seven nights straight! Yes, seven! Even though I started this challenge with meals planned for Monday through Thursday, we actually cooked at home the previous Sunday night as well as the next Friday and Saturday, which is almost certainly a personal best. To be fair, Tom cooked Friday night (an awesome meal… I have asked him to write a guest post to share it, but I may have to post a picture just to show you). It felt great to cook at home all those nights in a row, and it also felt great to go out for sushi last night and get take out pizza tonight. I fell off the wagon bigtime!

I wanted to share the favorite meal of the week, which was lemon chicken thighs with parmesan roasted broccoli. The lemon chicken is from American Masala by Chef Suvir Saran. I got this book last year from Tom, and while many of the recipes in the book have an Indian bend, this one does not. This recipe is not only one of my favorite recipes tried from the book, but is one of the best ways I have ever cooked chicken at home. I was compelled to cook it from the picture accompanying the recipe, so I hope my picture here might do the same. Chicken thighs are my favorite cut of chicken, especially bone-in and skin-on. This chicken is really unique tasting – it has a lot of acidity from the lemon and balsamic vinegar, but the addition of sugar and butter rounds that out, adds sweetness, and makes for a really balanced flavor. I have a real weakness for lemon, I just love it in pretty much everything, and the lemon flavor stands out a lot in this one.

The parmesan roasted broccoli is new to me – it is from Ina Garten’s latest cookbook Back to Basics. Surprise, surprise, it also features a considerable amount of lemon zest and lemon juice. I actually thought the dishes worked together despite the major lemon action… and Tom says he agrees (I was holding a chef’s knife at the time we discussed this issue, however). The broccoli is really outstanding, also one of the best preparations of broccoli I have ever made at home.

Lemon Chicken Thighs

8 chicken thighs
2 T balsamic vinegar
2 lemons, zested, 1 juiced, and the other cut into wedges
1 T plus one tsp. kosher salt
2-½ tsp. ground pepper
2 T sugar
2 T canola oil
4 T unsalted butter

Prick the chicken pieces all over with a fork and set aside. Whisk the balsamic vinegar with half of the lemon zest, salt, and 2 tsp. of the ground pepper. Add the chicken and turn to coat. Refrigerate for 20 minutes up to overnight. Mix the sugar with the remaining lemon zest in a small bowl and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Heat the oil in a large oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat until very hot, about 2 minutes. Melt 2 Tbsp. of the butter, and place chicken skin-side-down in the pan along with the remaining marinade. Cook until the chicken is browned on one side, 3 to 4 minutes, and then flip each piece over and cook 1 minute more. Sprinkle some of the lemon sugar and remaining ½ tsp. of ground pepper over the chicken and transfer skillet to oven. Roast until chicken is completely cooked through and a thermometer interested into the thickest part of the thigh reads 165°F, about 25 minutes.

Remove chicken from oven and scatter the butter pieces and lemon juice over it. Serve once the butter is melted, with some of the pan sauce drizzled over the chicken and rice, with lemon wedges on the side.

Parmesan Roasted Broccoli

4 to 5 pounds broccoli

4 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced

Good olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted

1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons julienned fresh basil leaves (about 12 leaves)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Cut the broccoli florets from the thick stalks, leaving an inch or two of stalk attached to the florets, discarding the rest of the stalks. Place the broccoli florets on a sheet pan large enough to hold them in a single layer. Toss the garlic on the broccoli and drizzle with 5 tablespoons olive oil. Sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Roast for 20 to 25 minutes, until crisp-tender and the tips of some of the florets are browned.

Remove the broccoli from the oven and immediately toss with 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, the lemon zest, lemon juice, pine nuts, Parmesan, and basil. Serve hot.

The chicken recipe actually calls for the chicken to be roasted at 400 degrees, but given that I was cooking the chicken at the same time as the broccoli I adjust the temp and cooked both dishes at 425. I prepared jasmine rice to serve as an accompaniment, and it was a perfect side for the chicken, since the rice soaked up some of the delicious pan juices of the chicken… that sauce is just awesome.

Pasta e Fagioli with Simple Green Salad

Soup, salad, and bread. Is this the Olive Garden? Not exactly but it was pretty tasty (Full disclosure: I am not ashamed to admit, I love Olive Garden. Its one of my favorite chains.) Anyway for dinner Monday night, I went fairly simple with a soup that I put together on Sunday afternoon, served with a simple green salad and some tasty french bread. The soup is actually from a package - one of those bagged numbers in the same section as the dried beans that comes with a spice packet and recipe on the back. All I had to do was add some other components: chopped onion, celery, carrots, and garlic; a can of tomatoes; broth and water. The spice packet had a bunch of dried Italian spices plus dehydrated spinach. It was obviously simple to use but it really wouldn't have been much harder to add my own spices. It was nice to get all the different kinds of beans in one bag and not have to buy all of them. My mom makes a really good lentil soup from a package like this and she usually adds italian sausage to it to make it even heartier. That would have worked well here too. The beans and small noodles, plus a lot of veggies and good seasoning, was a nice, hearty combination that was filling and comforting.

For the salad, I stayed very simple also and just mixed a half a chopped avocado with some red leaf lettuce and romaine that I had in the crisper. I used leftover caesar dressing from Ina Garten's recipe that I already had in the fridge from another day. Here is the recipe for that:

1 extra-large egg yolk at room temperature*
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
8 to 10 anchovy fillets (optional)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (3 lemons)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups good mild olive oil
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Place the egg yolks, mustard, garlic, anchovies, lemon juice, salt, and pepper into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process until smooth. With the food processor running, slowly pour the olive oil through the feed tube (as though you were making mayonnaise), until thick. Add the grated Parmesan cheese and pulse 3 times.

I usually cut this recipe in half when I make it for just "every day" use, i.e. not for a big dinner party or anything. It makes a lot. It is a pretty awesome recipe though - has a ton of flavor, very lemony and creamy.

*I actually make it with mayo now instead of the egg yolk (one T of mayo in place of the egg yolk). That way I am comfortable with it keeping in the fridge for a week or so without going bad on me.

I think the key, at least for me, to having success with eating at home regularly is to usually rely on menus that are fairly simple, and to not be afraid to use things like a soup mix, rather than making everything from scratch. So... day one, done. Tonight its pad thai (from a box mix, I am afraid... but it is a really good box.) Stay tuned, reader(s). All three of you.

Ambitious Week

One of the more rewarding things I do as a stay at home mom is to plan the week's meals ahead of time, and then actually follow through with the plan. For various reasons (cravings for other things, laziness, and/or "I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids") this goal is not always met. I had a great idea that if I blog about my meal plan, and then have to report on whether it actually happens, I might have more success. So this morning, I will fill you in on the plan for the next four nightly meals (nothing planned for Friday), and then will report on whether those meals are actually made. They are mostly designed for Tom and I, but the kids will eat some component of them. So here are the four meals:

Monday: Pasta e Fagioli soup and french bread with green salad

Tuesday: Pad Thai with ground pork and chicken potstickers

Wednesday: Balsamic-Lemon Chicken Thighs and roasted brocolli

Thursday: Tacos de Carnitas with rice and beans

So here goes! More to follow...