My husband came home from a long trip recently, and although it was Friday night and takeout was calling to me, I decided to greet him with a home cooked meal. Not only that, but I was trying out two new recipes. Talk about playing with fire. No one said I like to make things easy on myself.
Both were a success. Yahoo! Both Kiddo and Mario enjoyed them ... which is a rare occurrence, indeed.
First up was a Curried Coconut Chicken Soup that I made in the Crock Pot. Kiddo and I were out snow blowing, and I cut it close time-wise, but it turned out great. The coconut milk left white flecks in the soup, but didn't affect the flavor at all. I served it over brown rice and enjoyed the nutty texture it added.
Because we live in a relatively small town in New Hampshire, lemongrass and Madras curry are not commonplace. Knowing that I wanted to try this recipe (and several other Thai recipes), I ordered both ingredients from Amazon. There are a lot of differing opinions in regard to the dry equivalent of lemongrass, but 1 teaspoon of powder per stalk called for in the recipe worked out well.
This recipe can also be adapted for the freezer, so all you have to do is pop it in the Crock Pot the day of. I'm all over freezer slow cooker meals right now.
For dessert we all lent a hand in making Chewy Nutella Cookies. I replaced the butter with Earth Balance and the milk/heavy cream with Silk soy creamer. Kiddo couldn't stop devouring them. The crunch of the hazelnuts and chewiness of the cookie were the perfect combo.
It was a lovely night spent at home. In our jammies. It has been a long road, but I think meal planning is finally becoming a habit. I'm so much better for it. I have a couple more Crock Pot meals in the freezer and the rest of the week is laid out in my head. It is so nice not to have to dig through the cabinets after a long day.
As of last Friday, Mario is home for a couple weeks. Instead of eating out or flying by the seat of our pants, I'm excited to plan ahead and test out some newly discovered recipes on him. That man loves a home cooked meal, and I am happy to add to my go-to list of quick, easy and delicious eats. Not all of them work out, of course, but I won't know until I try them. He is so gracious about the duds, and I love him for it. Jared is a little more blunt regarding his dislikes, but he's trying new things every week which makes my heart happy. We have struggled with his picky eating for most of his life, which is only complicated by his dairy allergy, so the opportunity to eat a family meal is priceless.
Man I should have come for dinner haha. :)
ReplyDeleteThey both sound really delicious, Sarah!
ReplyDeleteThose nutella cookies look so delicious. I really need to try those.
ReplyDeleteHi, I came here from the Meet and Greet. The Nutella cookies look amazing! I would love to try these. I can't even have Nutella in my house because I'll eat it straight from the jar, but maybe if it went into cookies, I would at least feel more productive. :) I'm following you with GFC and looking forward to reading more. If you'd like to stop by my blog, it's at http://thistlebearhome.blogspot.com :)
ReplyDeleteHi Jennifer! I never had Nutella as a kid, so I'm new to its amazing-ness. :) Thank you so much for stopping by...I'm heading over to your blog!
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