Dinner alert. OK, well not dinner tonight, unless you’ve already started, but you should seriously put this on your list of things to make for dinner sometime: the 3 hours are really worth it! It’s a pleasantly spicy, but not searingly hot Brazilian-style beef and bean stew called Feijoada, with onions, poblano chiles and chorizo. Amazingly yummy, really beats the February blues type of meal. Serve with rice or without. You’ll definitely want seconds.
dinner
Rumor has it, there is a big-ish football game on the TV in a little while. Rumor has it that the New England Patriots are playing in it. I’m a New Englander. I might care about the game.
So while I am sure there are lots of appetizer and snack food recipes going around today, I thought I would make something with an ode to where I live: Lobster Mac + Cheese. Maine Lobster. Vermont Cheddar. Made in Massachusetts. OK, that’s half of the New England States represented. Best I could muster.
I seem to be on a little bit of a kick to make one-pot (or one-pan meals). There are a lot of them out there, and I really don’t want to do any more dishes then I have to. Enter stage right, this One-Pan Chicken and Veggie Bake. I made it in one of my Le Creuset pans, but you could also just use a rimmed baking sheet. Also, I used carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, shallots and Brussels sprouts, but this would work with lots of other veggies — parsnips and turnips, red onions, even cauliflower or broccoli florets. Again, done in under ah hour (I seem to like those meals too).
Here is a quick main dish inspired by my trip to the newly opened Eataly here in Boston yesterday. A quick, one pot, done in under an hour, weeknight friendly (provided you like mushrooms) Triple Mushroom pasta. Neat trick: you cook the pasta in with the mushrooms, which saves a step (and an additional pot). This might have to go on my go-to rotation too as I think that I’ll be able to eat from this at least 3x meals (being the singleton that I am).
This recipe isn’t so much about the ingredients as it is about the technique: butterflying (or spatchcocking) a whole chicken and then placing it in a searing hot cast iron skillet that you have heated to 500F in the oven. It’s a technique that was recently on America’s Test Kitchen and I thought that I would give it a go. The result: a yummy roasted bird in under an hour. I will have to remember to open the windows in the kitchen though, because it was a little smokey (just because my oven is old and there isn’t good airflow; most people likely won’t have this issue). Lovely comfort food on a wet January day.