Lemon Grilled Chicken Breasts

We had a beautiful day here in San Jose, California, so I decided to do some grilling for tonight's dinner.   I used the Cooking Light marinade recipe for Lemon Grilled Chicken Breasts.   This recipe had very positive reviews on myrecipes.com.    The chicken turned out great and I will probably never grill plain chicken breasts again after tonight's dinner.   Well, except for the chicken I grill for my 9 year old daughter.   She does not like her food to be "seasoned."   My wife really liked the chicken marinated this way as well.     The photo below from myrecipes.com shows the chicken prepared with couscous and grilled asparagus.    My wife made plain rice to go along with the chicken and I steamed some asparagus which didn't really turn out that great.    All said and done an easy meal to prepare. 

I did the shopping at Whole Foods earlier in the day and it took me about an hour to prepare the dinner starting with the chicken and marinade.

Here is my shopping list:

Organic Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (1.2lb @ 8.99/lb)...  $10.78
Asparagus (.57lb @ 4.99/lb)...  $2.84
Rice (didn't need to buy any, I made a cup of rice)... $0.50
Lemon... $0.30


Total  $14.42 for 4 servings or $3.60 per serving.

Mini Farfalle with Roasted Peppers, Onions, Feta, and Mint

Tuesday, Feb 26, 2013

Tonights dinner is a delicious vegetarian dish,  Mini Farfalle with Roasted Peppers, Onions, Feta, and Mint.  Its another Cooking Light recipe I got from myrecipes.com.  

This is the second time I have made this dish and it turned out really well both times.   The fresh mint and fresh basil and toasted pine nuts add such wonderful aromas to this dish.   Its a hearty meal and after a bowl of this pasta dinner, I felt full.

I left to go grocery shopping at Whole Foods at about 5pm to buy the ingredients and had dinner on the table by 6:45pm.    Here's my grocery bill:

16oz Box of Farfalle Pasta...  $2.50 (I used only 1/2 a box... so let's call it $1.25)
Organic Fresh Mint...   $1.99
Organic Fresh Basil...   $3.99  (The Whole Foods near me sells fresh basil in a container which always has 3x as much fresh basil as I need.   Unless I make something else which uses fresh basil soon, I will end up throwing the rest out).
Organic Pine Nuts (.09lb @ 29.99/lb)... $2.70
Red Onion...  $2.00
Feta Crumbles... $2.79
Thompson Raisins  $.30
Jar of Roasted Peppers... $3.39

Total....  $18.41

Made 3 servings... $6.13/serving if include the cost of all the basil I bought, $5.25/serving if I include the cost of the basil I used.

Now since this dinner made only 3 servings, I don't have enough left over for dinner for my wife and I for tomorrow night.   I have to remember to make more than the recipe calls for next time.

See you Thursday.

Steak Fajitas

The first time I ever had steak fajitas was in 1991 at a Chevy's Restaurant in Fremont California.   They were soooooo delicious.   Everything about Chevy's was good at that time.   The tortilla machine in dining area cranking out fresh tortillas, the hot, thin, salty tortilla chips, the fresh salsa, the margaritas, and the southwestern route 66 decor all worked together to make Chevy's my favorite restaurant of that time.   Chevy's has gone bankrupt since that time after selling out to Taco Bell in the 90s and then to various private equity firms.   I guess having an MBA is not nearly as valuable as knowing how to serve your guests when it comes to managing a restaurant.  

Well, I have never lost my taste for steak fajitas.    For a long time, I would make fajitas at home using a fajita seasoning packet to season the steak or chicken.   While the seasoning packet is better than no seasoning, its really not very good at all and I got to a point where I really had no desire to make fajitas at home. 

And after a particularly bad meal at one of the few remaining Chevy's restaurants, I had to be honest with myself... if I wanted good fajitas, I was going to have to learn to make them myself.

I don't know why I never looked into how to make fajitas before, but it finally dawned on me to look up some recipes for the marinade.   One of the keys is marinating the steak of chicken for several hours.  I since found a really good fajita marinade recipe on myrecipes.com.   The marinade includes lime juice, olive oil, garlic, cumin, salt, pepper, and worcestershire sauce. 

On Sunday, I cut the steak into 1 inch wide strips and marinated the meat for about 6 hours and then grilled the meat outside on a charcoal grill.   (BTW, why can't someone make a decent charcoal grill?)  The meal was delicious and we will have left overs for dinner tonight. 

One more thing... The steak fajitas were really good, but still did not satisfy my desire for the Chevy's steak fajitas I remember from 20 years ago.   After dinner I searched for the Chevy's fajitas recipe and found that Chevy's actually published a cookbook which includes their steak fajita marinade and that a lot of people have posted this recipe online.   Next time I make steak fajitas, I am going to try the Chevy's recipe.

Sesame Noodles with Chicken and Zucchini

Tonight's dish is something I have been making for years.   The original version of this dish is a delicious vegetarian recipe from Main-Course Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin.   After I started eating meat again, I adapted this recipe to include diced chicken.   The original recipe calls for asparagus, but if I cannot find decent asparagus at the grocery store, I will substitute zucchini.   Also, in order to reduce my sodium intake, I use reduced sodium soy sauce and about half the amount of soy sauce called for in the recipe.   If you are looking for good, easy vegetarian recipes, I highly recommend Main-Course Vegetarian Pleasures.   This cookbook is what I started with when learning to cook.

Here is the basic idea behind this dish... saute vegetables and scallions with garlic and ginger.   Then saute the diced chicken with garlic and ginger.   Make the sauce or dressing which is 1 part soy sauce, 1 part rice wine, 1 part sesame oil, a dash of chili oil, and 1 part vegetable stock.   Pour the sauce over cooked spaghetti noodles, mix in the chicken and veggies, sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

Its a delicious meal that always turns out good.   My wife and I always enjoy this dinner.

This is a one night meal... no plan to have left overs.    Below is a breakdown of the cost of this dinner.  I shopped at Whole Foods.

Garlic... $0.10
Organic Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast (.95 lb @ $6.99/lb)... $6.69
Ginger...  $0.30
3 Organic Zucchini (0.7lb @ $3.69/lb)...   $2.58
Soy Sauce, Sesame Oil, Rice Wine, Vegetable Stock....  $1.25
Green Onions...  $1.49
Spaghetti... $3.20
Sesame Seeds... $??

Total:   $15.61

Makes two servings... so each serving was  at least $7.80

Southwestern Chicken Soup

I wasn't sure what I was going to make tonight.   I wanted it to be a chicken night since we had steak kabobs the last two nights for dinner.    None of my chicken recipes seemed appealing then I remembered the Southwestern Chicken Soup I made a couple of weeks ago.     Its another Cooking Light recipe from MyRecipes.com.   I noted the ingredients in my phone and then left for the grocery store at 5pm and I had dinner ready by 6:30pm when my wife and daughter walked through the door.   This is a pretty simple recipe with some delicious fresh ingredients like avocado, tomato, and cilantro.    I substitute Cannellini the Great Northern beans called for in the recipe.   The soup was delicious.

Here is my shopping list and cost of the items (from Whole Foods).

32 oz Organic Chicken Broth (2@$3.59)...  $7.18
16 oz Can of Organic Cannellini beans... $1.19
1 Large Onion (0.86 lb)... $1.63  (I only used half of this)
1 Lime... $0.50
1 Organic Avocado... $1.79
1 Plain Roasted Chicken... $9.99
2 Organic Tomatoes  (0.5 lb)... $2.48
1 Bunch of Cilantro... $1.99 (I used about half of this)

Total cost:   $26.75

Makes about 6 servings, so cost per serving:   $4.46

Middle Eastern Steak Kabobs

We had a Middle Eastern dinner tonight.   I normally do not cook on Mondays but since today was a holiday and my schedule is a little different this week, I decided to cook Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday this week and have pizza on Friday night. 

I grilled steak kabobs marinated in curry powder, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, and salt.   My 9 year old daughter loves hummus and helped me make it.   My wife made some plain rice.   Our daughter likes only "Mommy rice" and is suspicious of "Daddy rice."   I have a tendency to let the rice cook a little too long or I don't put enough water in sometimes and a few crunchy or not fully cooked pieces of rice are unacceptable to a 9 year old.   I also made a salad with tomato, cucumber, garlic, fresh parsley, olive oil and lemon juice to go along with the meal.   I had only one good fresh tomato (I thought I had more but they had gone bad) so I included some canned diced tomatoes which kind of overpower the dish a little bit.   I would normally put tahini and yogurt in this salad as well, but I forgot to buy yogurt at the store.

Overall, the meal was really good and the kabobs were probably the best steak kabobs I have ever made.  This is the first time I have used this marinade.  I got the marinade from a Cooking Light shawarma recipe.   I used the same marinade for some chicken kabobs a few weeks ago and realized the flavor was very close to the kabobs from Dish Dash, one of my wife's favorite restaurants.   In fact, during dinner tonight, she said, "Mmm... these kabobs are as good as Dish Dash!"   That's pretty much the ultimate compliment I think, when anything I make turns out as good as a dish from a restaurant I really like.   I feel like I've accomplished something when that happens.

I cooked enough that we can have left over kabobs, rice, hummus, and salad tomorrow night. 

I usually shop at Whole Foods.    I try to use fresh, organic ingredients as much as possible.   For the kabobs I used New York Strip.   The steaks were very lean and very expensive at $25 per pound!   The price of beef at Whole Foods has gone up a LOT in the past year.    I have cut back on the amount of beef we eat, not just due to the price, but also because chicken and lean cuts of pork are much healthier.

Occasionally, I will make a vegetarian dinner, but I generally do not enjoy meatless dishes as much.   My wife and I were both vegetarians when we met and we maintained a strictly vegetarian diet for the first few years of our marriage.  I started getting interested in cooking during that time because I wanted to continue to be a vegetarian and also have good food that we enjoyed eating.   My cooking has improved a lot since then.  Even though I just follow recipes, I seem to be a lot better at having things turn out than in those earlier years.  

Herb Crusted Chicken and Parsley Orzo

Tonight I made Herb Crusted Chicken and Parsley Orzo with some spinach sauteed in olive oil.  This is another recipe from Cooking Light on MyRecipes.com.   I have made this dish a few times before and it has always turned out well.   Tonight was no exception, but since I have not made it for awhile I think we appreciated it more.   It was a healthy, delicious dinner.   My 9 year old daughter loves any kind of pasta as long as its served plain or with olive oil or butter.   She doesn't like any kind of sauces yet.   I prepared some Orzo for her without the parsley.

The most time consuming part of this dish is pulling the parsley leaves off the stems.   That usually takes me about 20 minutes.   Maybe I'm slow.   I love almost anything with fresh parsley, so its worth the 20 minutes in my opinion.   I started cooking about 6:15 and we started eating at 7:30pm.   I don't measure the ingredients when I use this recipe.   I just sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper and then sprinkle Herbs de Provence on both sides of the chicken until the chicken is pretty well coated.   For the Parsley Orzo, I chop up a bunch of fresh parsley and then start mixing parsley butter and the cooked orzo and some salt until it tastes about right.

Stir Fried Ginger Shrimp

I often try new recipes on Saturday night.   I don't usually plan to have left overs from a Saturday night meal, so if the recipe doesn't turn out well, then I haven't ruined dinner for two nights.

Tonight I made Stir Fried Ginger Shrimp.   Like most of the recipes I use, this is a Cooking Light recipe I got online at MyRecipes.com.   I have had more success with Cooking Light recipes than any other publication.    I think Cooking Light does a better job of testing their recipes.   I usually pick recipes that have several good reviews.   Stir Fried Ginger Shrimp has 18 reviews and the average is 4 or 5 stars, so seemed like it could be a winner.

I made some modifications.   I used peanut oil instead of canola oil.   I know the peanut oil isn't as healthy but I like the taste a lot better.   I also substituted red bell pepper for the celery.   Other than that, I followed the recipe closely.   Well, it was bland.   It seemed to be missing something.   My wife thought it needed some green veggies like broccoli or zucchini.   I served the dish over white Thai Jasmine rice.

I thought this was the first time I made the Stir Fried Ginger Shrimp, but after going back and looking at the reviews, I realize that I reviewed this dish back in October of 2012 and I gave the dish only 3 stars.   (I think I should change that to 1 star).    I guess I forgot that I made it before and that it wasn't that great the first time.   I need to remove this dish from my saved recipes.

My daughter is 9 years old and she is somewhat allergic to shrimp and doesn't like anything spicy.    For her, I made some poached salmon.    She loves salmon.   She dips the salmon in olive oil and lemon juice and can put away almost a half pound of salmon.    Its about the only thing I can think of that she likes enough to eat that much of.   I usually buy wild caught king salmon, fresh if its available.   I try to limit the salmon to twice / month because of concerns about mercury in fish.
 

Why I Like to Cook

Welcome to my cooking blog.   I didn't start this blog because I am a great cook... I am not.   I do ok in the kitchen.  I can follow recipes.  I have a sense of when things seem to be turning out or not.   I can make adjustments on the fly sometimes to save a dish from turning into a bad meal.   I do derive satisfaction from cooking a meal that turns out well and for me, a meal turns out well when its healthy and we enjoy eating the food and want more of it and it doesn't take me 3 hours to prepare.

I seem to be pretty lucky in picking dishes to make and having them turn out well and in being able to come up with things my 9 year old daughter will eat.    That's how I earned the nickname, "Jackpot Daddy."   

Family dinners were a part of my childhood.  I think the family dinner is an important and valuable tradition.   Its really the only daily activity in which we sit at a table across from our family members without the distraction of TV or the internet.  Its my favorite time of day and the main reason I enjoy cooking is to make dinner a satisfying family event for everyone in the family at least a few times per week.

I generally cook 4 meals per week on Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.    Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday meals are designed to have leftovers for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.    Sometimes we go out to dinner on Friday or Saturday but not often.