cooking

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To read about my Just Add Cooking April meals, click here.

As I mentioned last month, Just Add Cooking has generously offered me a week of meals a month for three months to review the service. If you read about my first experience with Just Add Cooking, you’ll know that I was hesitant to try meal delivery services but then completely changed my mind once I tried it.

One thing that keeps standing out to me is how many local ingredients Just Add Cooking uses. It’s my favorite part of getting the box, diving in and seeing what companies I recognize locally and which ones I need to learn more about. I also really love that everything is portioned out and ready to go. Being primarily responsible for meals and having a busy day job means dinner burnout, and having this delivery on a Sunday takes away a lot of the thinking, prep, and urge to just order something over GrubHub! It makes healthy, quick meals easy and also really takes the guesswork out of cooking for novices in the kitchen. Below I have reviewed each recipe we cooked last week, also sharing photos from the Just Add Cooking website, since mine are not as pretty. . . Click on the photo to get the recipe!

Seared Prawns with Salsa - Just Add Cooking

Nola's Fine Foods Salsa shrimp and salsa recipe

Seared Prawns with Salsa – I thought this recipe sounded really interesting, and we love prawns, so we went with it. I was delighted that salsa from local company Nola’s Fine Foods was included. . . I could (and um, did) eat this salsa out of the container with a spoon. It’s SO delicious. Olive Connection in Brookline carries it!

This recipe was super quick and easy and filled us both up while also leaving some of the rice for the next day. I loved the contrast of the tang and spice in the salsa with the raisins. This is a dish I would definitely love to make again. I would probably double my salsa portion. In case you didn’t know, salsa is one of my favorite foods and would be prominent in my last meal if ever I had to design one.

 

 

 

Beef Burger and Green Beans- Just Add Cooking

Beef Burger and Green Beans – I didn’t get any photos of this one because mine turned out really un-pretty. As with the burgers we had last month, I thought these were missing a binder like bread crumbs. The flavor in them, however, was excellent, with a nice bite of earthy oregano. The real stars of this dish were the plentiful veggie sides. Fresh green beans with completely addictive fried onion sprinkles and carrots with caraway seriously filled our plates and made for great additions to lunch salads the next day. After my first experience with the brand, where I wanted more veggies, they have definitely responded by adding them in, which makes the meals even more complete.

 

 

Bondat Foods seasoning

Joe's Kitchen Chickpeas

cauliflower and chickpea tacos    

BBQ Cauliflower Chickpea Tacos

BBQ Cauliflower Chickpea Tacos – I was definitely most excited about this one, because, tacos! The green beans that came with didn’t make it to dinner; we snacked on them raw while we prepped because they were so good. The Massachusetts-made Bondat Foods taco seasoning mix added amazing flavor to chickpeas from Joe’s Kitchen in Vermont and yummy roasted cauliflower. The tacos were stuffed with a creamy coleslaw, which I actually made with purple cabbage we had that was about to go bad. We used the cabbage provided in the box for another coleslaw later in the week though! This was a seriously filling dish, and the mix of cauliflower and chickpeas made it a really hearty vegetarian option that my meat-loving husband could get behind.

All in all, another win for Just Add Cooking in our house! I think ordering the service will be particularly handy for those beach and boat weekends where we just want our meals to be easy and for the ingredients to be delivered to our doorstep.

 

My May Just Add Cooking delivery was provided free of charge in exchange for a blog post. I have been provided with the opportunity to share an affiliate code for new orders, where I receive compensation if the code is used. All opinions are my own.

Place your order using code TRAVEL, and I will donate my affiliate proceeds to Boston’s Forgotten Felines.

Tags: cooking, dinner, Food, Just Add Cooking, meal planning, recipes

Have you heard of The Daily Table?  We’d be reading about it here and there and finally made a trip last week. It’s one of my new favorite spaces.

The Daily Table

Here’s the story:

Daily Table is a not-for-profit retail store that offers our community a variety of tasty, convenient and affordable foods that will help you feel and be your best; food that will keep you moving forward, not hold you back.  We provide both “grab-n-go” ready to eat meals, and a selection of produce, bread, dairy and grocery items all at prices that will put a smile on your face, and designed to fit within every budget.  Many of our items are prepared fresh daily in our own kitchen onsite.

We offer an upbeat, clean and friendly retail store environment that is open to everyone in the community.  We can offer these daily values by working with a large network of growers, supermarkets, manufacturers, and other suppliers who donate their excess, healthy food to us, or provide us with special buying opportunities.

In this way, we are able to keep prices affordable for all our customers.  Our meals are priced to compete with fast food options, making it easier for families to eat healthier within their means.  And all the food in our store is informed by guidelines set for us by a leading group of nutrition experts, which makes it easy for our customers to make great food choices.

hummus

We held off on going to Daily Table for so long partially because we weren’t sure if it was open to all, and we certainly didn’t want to take away from anyone who could really benefit from shopping there. Then, while at the Dorchester Winter Farmers Market (another favorite), we were encouraged to visit and learned that everyone is welcome. The more shoppers, the more support the concept receives.

The Daily Table is bright, colorful, and inviting, with a friendly staff, and it relies on volunteers to keep costs down. Every time we have visited, the selection has been different, as the food is excess food from the store’s partners. I love that the selection varies, and we’ve decided to start our shopping here each week to plan meals around what they have, then supplement at the regular grocery store. On past visits, we’ve seen amazing deals on wild tuna (two hefty steaks for $5), spicy chicken burgers (four for $2.99), and organic yogurts, which are $0.49 each. Five pound tubs of hummus for $2.99 and baby carrots for $0.49 per pound make for plenty of healthy snacks that are affordable for a family.

carrots One of the really great things about The Daily Table is their made-on-site pre-made meal program. So far I have tried the delicious curried butternut squash soup, pulled pork pizza, and my new favorite, chili lime coconut chips, and everything has been so good. You can peek into the kitchen while you shop, and just like with the grocery items, prepared foods also often change. I’ve seen curries with rice, beef stew, quesadillas, sandwiches, and more. The prices are extremely competitive with fast food, making eating healthier much easier for busy people, especially the many in our community who hold multiple jobs to make ends meet.

The Daily Table Kitchen

coconut chips Shopping at The Daily Table has allowed us to save money and discover new ingredients. It’s also made me get creative in the kitchen, and in general, it just fills my heart with happiness for our community, which is full of great people who deserve the opportunity and access to healthy food. Eliminating food waste while helping people eat better? It just makes sense.

The Daily Table is a big step in the right direction to alleviating some of the issues created by food deserts, and I am proud to support this pilot program.

Tags: community, cooking, Dorchester, Food, food blog, groceries, grocery shopping

Easy, delicious, and cozy, both of these dinners made it into the week’s meal plan, and they will have a permanent location the rotation moving forward. I’ve been in a major cooking slump for some time, and I am excited to be interested in cooking again and in craving my own food rather than takeout or restaurant meals, which have been happening way too often!

pesto shrimp and pasta

Pesto Shrimp and Pasta –

I had been craving pesto in a major way for a while, and while I usually consider it more of a summer sauce, with basil being in season and all, I have a really great, easy winter pesto that I love. Like most of my “recipes” this calls for mixing things up until they taste good to you. I use a mix of spinach, grated parmesan cheese, walnuts, tons of garlic, and olive oil, which I picked up at the Olive Connection. The pesto would be great on chicken, any pasta and as a side to a gooey wedge of brie and a baguette for a quick and easy Christmas appetizer. This dish could be made vegetarian with the addition of white beans in place of the shrimp. I think that would be a delicious substitute!

slow cooker chicken tikka

The other, absolute must-make, if you love Indian food. This Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala was SO easy and delicious, with a side of Basmati rice and steamed spinach for a bit of green. I used a recipe from The Kitchn; please see below for the recipe I started with. I cooked the onions, garlic, ginger, spices before adding to the slow cooker, and I used a lot more Garam Masala and ginger. My palate loves strong flavors, and when making this again I would add some chili peppers for extra spice. Overall though, this meal was incredible and the leftovers made me look forward to lunch the next day. To make this vegetarian, cubes of pan-seared tofu or chickpeas would sub in really well. Make it vegan with coconut milk. It’s all about the sauce!

Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala

 

Serves 4 to 6

1 to 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1-inch piece whole ginger, peeled and grated
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 to 2 tablespoons garam masala
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes
3/4 cup heavy cream or coconut milk
Fresh cilantro, chopped
2 cups cooked rice, to serve

Cut the chicken thighs into bite-sized pieces and transfer them to a 3-quart or larger slow cooker. Stir in the onion, garlic, ginger, tomato paste, 1 tablespoon of garam masala, paprika, and kosher salt until the chicken is evenly covered with spices. Stir in the diced tomatoes with their juices.

If you have the time: Marinate the chicken in 1/2 cup yogurt for up to 6 hours. Shake to remove excess yogurt before transferring to the slow cooker.

→ If you have the time: Sauté the onions and garlic in a little olive oil over medium-high heat in a skillet until softened, then stir in the ginger, tomato paste, and spices until fragrant. Transfer to the slow cooker with the chicken and diced tomatoes. This will give your tikka masala more depth of flavor.

Tags: cooking, Food, food blog, homecooking, recipe

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