KitchenKatalog: Blog 193

Meredith and I made Buffalo Chicken Casserole from Jay's Baking Me Crazy (LOCAL). It is a Whole30 recipe but it is also pretty good being full of vegetables from the squash and carrots. I used this Kitchn recipe (LOCAL) with some Frank's as sauce.

We followed the recipe, but used the ranch from this recipe (LOCAL) which we'll use later. We had to buy chipotle-lime Whole30 compliant mayo since that is all we could find at the moment.

It was pretty good and made 5-6 meals worth. It was also pretty tasty, though overpowered by the Franks Red Hot.

Local Recipes

Shakshuka with Eggs

Second day of Whole30. We made shakshuka as a simple meal that we could also do some prep ahead. We cut the onions and peppers ahead of time to make life easier.

We sautéed the onions and red bell peppers (with some salt and pepper) until they were started to caramelize. I used a mix of ghee and olive oil. I then added the tomatoes and then a ton of spices:

It came out very good. Wasn't too much work with the prep. The roasted tomatoes also gave it a very nice flavor. I also liked the caramelized flavor.

Walnut Chicken Piccata

This was our first day of Whole30 and decided to go with a chicken recipe. We used the recipe from Wholesomelicious (Local ¹). We followed it pretty closely except we used two larger breasts. And, since we didn't scale the chicken, we had leftover walnuts so I mixed them with salt, pepper, and egg and made a small snack.

I think I had the pan on too hot and started to burn the walnuts. I had to take if off the heat and finish it in the oven. I then made the sauce (with tapioca starch instead of arrowroot).

We also quickly tossed the spiralized zucchini in the sauce for a little bit to soften it. Finally, Meredith topped it with some meyer lemon zest instead of parsley.

We liked it a lot. There was a lot of flavor; especially the walnuts got nice and crispy. The sauce was a bit lemony but not too bad. We would likely not make this off of Whole30 since it is a lot of walnuts but was great for dinner while doing it.

U: guest, P: name of my small dog, lower case ↩

Pulled Pork Stuffed Sweet Potato

Not much to this, and I do not have a real photo, but we bought this Whole30 pulled pork and mixed it with green chile to stuff into sweet potatoes.

We used this pork which worked fine, but it was a bit fatty. By cooking it on the stove, we rendered out some of the fat.

Egg Bhurji Breakfast Casserole

Meredith made a big thing of Egg Bhurji in a casserole form to be prep-ahead breakfasts for whole30. She followed the recipe pretty closely except went heavy on the ginger. We also don't know exactly how much egg we used. Probably a bit heavy on them but that's fine.

We also realized, after the fact, that there was soy lecithin in the pam but we decided that there was such a little amount that we would still eat it, but not use it again.

It worked out well as a breakfast thing. It's a lot of chopping, but we'd prep it again.

Broccoli Chorizo

Meredith did the work on this. We wanted to make our pretty normal cauliflower with soy chorizo but Costco was out of cauliflower so we went with broccoli. Meredith roasted it for about 30 minutes and then sautéed it with the soy chorizo and capers. She also tried something funky: she added some zested meyer lemon to it. I think that added a nice aroma, though I am not sure I really tasted it too much.

It was acceptable with broccoli, but was also much chewier and not as good as cauliflower.

Sweet Potato Chili Fries and Salmon with Brussel Sprouts

Emily was visiting and wanted to make use chile sweet potatoes fries (Local¹). Emily followed that recipe pretty closely. We did half with the cooling rack on the pan and the other right on a tray. They came out pretty good. I think I would try that again, though I would work harder to make sure they are uniform in size.

I also made roasted brussel sprouts. They didn't come our super amazingly. I think they got a bit bitter but we still ate them.

Finally, I made (and also overcooked) seared salmon. There wasn't much to it. I used some Emril and spilled a bit too much on one piece but were good other than that.

U: guest, P: name of my (smaller) dog, all lower case ↩

Roasted Carrot Soup

Meredith and I made carrot soup from our home-grown carrots! We had a ton of them as you can see in the photos. Our original plan was to not roast them but we changed our minds since they were a bit bitter. We chopped them up and roasted them at 400°F (+ convection) for 45 minutes or so. We then boiled them with an onion, Better Than Bouillon, and some salt.

At first, Meredith thought we went too heavy on the apple cider vinegar (though I liked it still) but after it sat for two days, the flavors really mellowed.

We served it with some toast and leftover Armadillo Eggs and topped it with Sriracha and Diablo sauce. I wouldn't say it was the best carrot soup ever, but it was still really good. It really tasted like carrots! And we grew them!