We are participating in “Bloggers Against Hunger” today because there are way too many hungry people in this great nation of ours. Because when you hear a story about a little boy who shies away from his teacher after she spots the spaghetti hanging out of his pocket, since he is saving it for his dinner and he’s afraid she’ll take it away from him — you feel the need to do something. Because when we volunteered at the North Texas Food Bank, we wrote about how moving it was to know the bags we were filling with nutritional drinks and snacks for the “Food 4 Kids” program might be the only food that 11,000 kids in our area would have to eat over the weekend — every single weekend. Because we recently watched the documentary “A Place at the Table” and can’t stop thinking about the surprising (and heartbreaking) things we learned from the film about hunger in America. Because 1 in 6 people saying they don’t have enough to eat in one of the world’s wealthiest countries is not okay.
Month: April 2013
Weekly Menu (April 6)
Saturday
Sunday
- Grilled Bone-In Rib Eyes w/ Little Italy Relish, Crispy Brussels Sprouts w/ Honey & Sriracha
Monday
- Pork & Black Bean Stew
Tuesday
- Italian Chicken & Dumpling Soup
Wednesday
- Sauteed Tilapia w/ White Wine Sauce, Broccolini
Thursday
- Dinner Out
Friday
- TBD
Friday Favorites
Some food-related (mostly) things we enjoyed this past week:
We hope everyone had a lovely Easter weekend, as we did. We boiled and colored eggs this year, and tried a new-to-us dish for Easter breakfast — Scotch Eggs. Basically you take hard boiled eggs, encase them in a layer of sausage (we used hot Italian turkey sausage, casing removed), then lightly coat with flour, dip in beaten eggs, coat with breadcrumbs and deep fry. Serve with mustard for dipping. They were really good, and a festive way to enjoy our Easter eggs.
We planted the rest of our garden this weekend, including okra, several different types of peppers, Japanese eggplant, pickling cucumbers, mini watermelon, and some 1015 onions interspersed throughout. We have a bunch of herbs growing in cinderblock “pots” along one side of the garden box (oregano, thyme, dill, mint, parsley and cilantro), as well as a little spinach seed experiment happening in the big pot containing our grape vine on the other side. We look forward to seeing how everything turns out this summer!
We took a break from gardening for a little chips-and-dips snack on the patio at a nearby taco joint. If you have one in your area, we highly recommend Torchy’s Tacos for deliciously inventive tacos and some of the best queso around.
Sometimes the smallest things can make my day. I found a set of four little ramiken-sized, hard plastic bowls on sale at Target the other day and had to have them, despite the fact that we already have more than enough ramikens that we use for ingredient prep nearly every time we cook. But the new bowls are pretty as well as functional, and add a nice pop of color to the narrow little bookshelf (actually an old CD tower) in the corner of our kitchen.
Unfried Chicken
It’s no secret that we love fried chicken (and who doesn’t??), but it’s certainly not the most healthy thing to eat (which is probably why it’s so delicious!) In addition to being decadently unhealthy, our favorite fried chicken recipe involves quite a bit more time and effort than the average weeknight meal, further distinguishing it as a special-occasion-only dish in our repertoire. So when we came across this recipe by Chef Art Smith that promised “a healthy spin on a classic dish,” and discovered that it also seemed pretty easy to make, we couldn’t wait to try it. We adapted the recipe by using chicken tenders instead of chicken breasts, and next time might cut down the spice amounts a little, but otherwise we really enjoyed it and loved how much more healthy it is than the traditional version of fried chicken. (Bonus — while doing research for this post, I found another Chef Smith recipe for unfried chicken that appears to be even more healthy — it replaces the buttermilk with Greek yogurt and uses multi-grain cereal instead of panko.) Traditional fried chicken will always be our favorite, but until someone declares the third Tuesday of each month to be a holiday or otherwise noteworthy occasion, unfried chicken will be our regular go-to when we’re craving that crispy outside, moist and flavorful inside, poultry goodness.