homechefpectations
Home Chefpectations
A place to see how Home Chef meals turn out in the hands of an amateur
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In another cook vs post order swap, Cheesy Plantain Tacos with beans and cilantro gremolata held the second place for cooking but comes in third for posting. With these vegetarian tacos coming only a few meals after the spicy salmon tacos, I realize I haven't actually made a "classic taco" in quite some time. Definitely not since before the time skip.
Like the last meal posted and the next meal in the timeline that was cooked, I needed a covered dish to build the filling for these tacos. Specifically the cover was used in the same way as the chicken sandwich, which is to say it was there to steam melt the cheese at the end. Before all that happened the rest of the filling had to be cooked. This started with diced plantains taking a sear on as many sides as I could manage. Something that I wasn't expecting with the enameled cast iron but makes sense in hindsight was how the sugars in the plantains would react during the searing. They left little plantain shaped black marks on the cast iron that no amount of soaking and scrubbing would remove. Eventually through more cooking these went away but I was surprised nonetheless since I had not seen the same behavior on my standard cast iron. I know I'm spending a lot of space talking about my new cooking equipment, and I promise I'll curtail that at some point, but for the moment I think the journey re-learning how to cook is worthwhile.
Less useful, was what the recipe suggested for the rest of the filling. It was essentially: throw the beans in and then top everything with cheese after a minute. I was quite certain that wouldn't adequately cook the beans so I threw a little water into the mix and extended the cook time by probably triple. This absolutely helped the filling overall but probably removed a bit of the crispiness of the plantain sear. Way back at the beginning of cooking this meal the pepitas were crushed and toasted as the first step in constructing the gremolata. Pepitas are just edible pumpkin seeds and gremolata is made with those and a handful of other spices to include cilantro, lime zest, and salt and pepper. This as a topping provided a contrasting texture to go against the rest of the soft components in the filling and the soft taco shells. Joining the topping was just regular sour cream and a squeeze of lime juice. On the leftovers, I built things upside down so that the gremolata had a better time staying contained in the taco as its stay up top was short-lived. Everything in both cases was tasty and filling. I really like plantains and I'm glad they pop up often in Home Chef.
Since I was already working with limes for this meal I decided to make a standard margarita on the rocks with salt to pair. I'm just about out of the El Padrino tequila so I'll have to look for a new one to try on the next resupply. Hard to argue against margaritas and tacos. I didn't make another for the leftovers but it was a nice treat with the initial plating.
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The plating plan for Crispy Chicken Cutlet Mozzarella Sandwich with fries had a last minute switcheroo. I tend to choose what portion goes to leftovers vs plate based solely on aesthetics, which is super discriminatory but, everything still gets eaten so whatever. The hero cutlet at the very end shifted and fell BACK INTO THE OIL cheese side down. It was a mess. It tasted alright on the reheat, at least, if a little on the greasy side.
Putting that curtain back to its original location, everything else went smoothly. The chicken was seasoned with garlic salt and pepper before the panko breading was pressed in to all sides. I upped the amount of breading used just to ensure that enough was available for adhering to the crispy part of the recipe title. I had to use the large braising pan for this instead of the large cast iron that usually gets the oil frying recipes because the melted cheese part required a cover. I lost the lid I used to use when I donated my aluminum non-stick set to my nephew so at this point in time that's the only lidable pan available. This meant I had to either add a lot more oil or use an amount that was closer to the levels I'd see if I followed the recipe with my smaller diameter cast iron. I ended up adding a little more oil after the initial set came up to temperature. I also ended up doing this strange chicken stand thing to get the skinny part out of the oil while the rest stayed in. Chicken always cooks unevenly and I didn't want saturated tough portions of the sandwich. It's one thing to saw through overcooked chicken with a knife, it's another to try and do it with your teeth.
For the fries, some chimichurri seasoning was added into the standard salt and pepper mix. They turned out near perfect and really let me keep focus on flipping the chicken and building the marinara and mozzarella topping. And then dropping one into the oil. The recipe called for the brioche buns to be toasted in the pan that was going to be used for the chicken but I never like constructing one of the final pieces of the meal first so instead I popped the oven on broil for the very end of the fries and gave the bun required for the initial portion a nice toasting that way. I sliced the sandwich in half prior to eating, something I usually do for all sandwiches, burgers, and the like. This gave me the extra check on chicken temperature and compressed the height of the sandwich enough to fit in my mouth. The chicken retained a good deal of moisture (which was good) and I probably would've burned my mouth if I had gone straight in with a bite. The cheese and marinara didn't disappoint but I would've like perhaps one more condiment for the lower portion of the bun.
I could've gone in any direction for pairing with this. A red wine would've worked, a mixed drink like a mule or vodka tonic could've been nice, but I decided to lean into the fried chicken and fries aspect and again picked the Southern Tier Harvest IPA. Definitely went well but I can't say for certain it would've been better or worse if I went with one of the other carbonated options.
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Lemon Butter Tilapia with honey-glazed carrots and Brussels sprouts is a rare seafood express meal for me. It's not necessarily that Home Chef doesn't include seafood as a protein option in the express menu, it is they seldom stand out to me. With most fish recipes using salmon or the ridiculously named steelhead trout (that is just salmon) I decided to jump on this one for a change-up.
The tilapia was straightforward to prepare and cook; seasoned on both sides with the aptly named seasoned salt and then pan-seared on the stove. Keeping with the express idea, only a couple minutes needed on each side and then topped with the titular "Lemon Butter." If I had let this stretch into a non-express timeline, I might have decided to wipe the tilapia pan clean and build the sauce there instead of using the microwave. In addition to the lemon and the butter, which was already a compound lemon garlic deal, mayonnaise was added to the mix prior to heating. There was a note on the recipe about adding a little cold water if the sauce separated but after whisking out of the microwave (that is, using a whisk to incorporate some air and body not quickly removing from) the sauce looked quite rich and creamy. However, between topping the tilapia and taking the plating shot it had separated again. Oh well, still tasted quite nice and any that was still around on the plate got mixed into the veggies that were left.
Despite both major components of the vegetable medley side coming already prepared it was still took the longest. Obviously, it would've taken much much longer if I was responsible for slicing the carrots and shredding the Brussels sprouts so I'm not knocking the recipe, it's just that this component had the most to do once it was time to cook. Prior to that, like the pepper and onions in a previous meal, I had to normalize the carrot sizes by slicing some of them lengthwise and a handful of the Brussels sprouts were rejected or reduced based on various and sundry cabbage nonsense. Once in the pan, the carrots got a standard honey and water glaze reduction with the savory addition of some vegetable base as well as salt and pepper. After those got sweet and tender, the Brussels sprouts joined the party and spent the last couple minutes mingling and getting to know everyone. It was a pretty good, but light, side. Veggies were tender but crisp and if anything I'd only ding it on how honey-forward the flavor remained. Didn't seem to go with the fish and lemon garlic butter but when the latter was mixed into the vegetable remnants on my plate things sorta clicked together, taste-wise.
Also clicking taste-wise was the Samuel Adams Flannel Fest Munich Dunkel that has been popular as a pairing for the last few meals. It was somewhat warm out that week so the only flannel needed was on the label. The honey forward side brought out some of the more subtle bitterness in the beer which in turn was a refreshing interlude to the savory and rich tilapia and sauce.
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Penne Pepperonata with Parmesan and garlic butter, an express meal, was the perfect quick-to-prepare dinner for this week. Dinner wasn't the only task on the menu and having fewer things to prepare meant the time saved getting to the plate could be redirected to everything else.
The time savings came in two forms and both are no stranger to the express meal family. First, the peppers and onions that made up a large portion of the sauce base came pre-sliced. Second, the penne pasta was already cooked and just needed some incorporation into the fully built sauce to come up to temperature and pick up some saucy flavor. Typically, if I have pasta of the same style, I will forgo the provided pre-cooked stuff and just boil some water to cook what is in the pantry. The reason for this is typically I am still taking a fair amount of prep time over what is expected and I think the pre-cooked stuff does a poor job of picking up sauce given the lack of pasta starch available. We had to reclaim every possible minute, though, so we kept the pre-cooked penne in the game.
Going back to the pre-sliced peppers and onions, while they absolutely do save time, they always come sliced in very uneven and gigantic cuts. Luckily, this time we could divide and conquer, so while I turned the broccoli into bite-sized pieces, my counterpart finished the slicing job that was started at the factory. Of course, I'm still a slow-poke compared to them, so I was still reducing broccoli when the rest of the recipe had progressed to the time broccoli needed to be added. All-in-all, things came together and we had two nice sized portions of vegetarian pasta to enjoy after our hard work had finished. Eagle-eyed readers might have noticed (or remembered) that the oven didn't slide in all the way at initial installation due to a lack of clearance for the full-sized 10-50R box as well as the original paint hidden by the older rear-control oven/range left a splotch of yellow. The same close friend that provided the one-off meal from the prior week was nice enough to join me to replace the receptacle, mount a tempered glass backsplash, and move some workout equipment in the basement. In return, I offered wine and a home cooked meal (that they ended up doing most of the work for... whoops).
The pairing, a Tenuta di Renieri Chianti Classico Riserva (2019), was picked by them as well. I offered free rein in selecting something from my collection of wines with the only input being suggesting a red. Chianti was a perfect choice and this vineyard has started to be one of my go-to wine makers for good Chianti. Relaxing with this bottle of wine and enjoying the success of our hard work, both edible and inedible, was a great way to close out the evening and the week of meals.
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Fried Jalapeño and Salmon Tacos with cabbage slaw stood out to me when selecting the week's meals less because of the fish taco aspect and more because of the fried jalapeños. Yeah, yeah, we all know that I like unnecessarily spicy food. What drew my interest *this time* was the frying not the heat.
It was also the heat. The recipe even included some hidden sources of spice that I wasn't expecting. Chile and cumin seasoning acted as a blackening rub for the salmon and then after breaking the fish up a pleasantly hot jalapeño jelly was mixed in as a sort of glaze. I was very happy with how the enameled cast iron treated searing the salmon flesh. Overall, I prefer the other brand of enameled cast iron to the one used here. I feel as though some of the time I have a better idea of what my regular cast iron is going to do in certain conditions than this one while the other brand is approximately as easy (or hard) to work with when compared against the older cast iron. Before flaking the fish and mixing in the jelly I had to remove the skin. Instead of removing to a plate and returning to the pan, I just flipped the salmon once more and did it in situ. This saved me some cleanup but probably kept the fish on heat a little longer than prescribed due to the heat retention in the pan. Didn't seem to harsh any flavors or textures though.
Slaw was pretty straight forward, common to slaw recipes with Home Chef. Mayonnaise, salt and pepper, and a bit of lime juice was mixed together in a bowl and set aside. Now we get to the fried jalapeños, of which I doubled the provided amount. In doing so, I had to increase the flour as well which was no problem. I also always crank the oil amount way up for these "fried whatever" recipes. Even with the smallest cast iron i have, two tablespoons of oil would not have been enough to evenly fry the slices. Using just a dry flour coating instead of anything with a binder or wet coating meant that a lot of the flour shocked off into the bottom of the pan but enough stuck around (literally) to produce some nicely crisp and nicely spicy rounds to top the tacos. Leftovers were pretty decent, fish as a leftover meal is always a bit dicey but no issues making the second 3 tacos about as tasty as the first three.
Nothing goes with this kind of taco quite like a refreshing beer. Most of my beer stock in this season is on the heavier, maltier, and sweeter end of the spectrum but luckily as part of the autumn variety pack from Southern Tier, the Harvest Autumn IPA was included. In addition to cutting through some of the flavors of the salmon it went nicely with the subtle lime present in the slaw.
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Green Goddess Risotto with asparagus and peas was the second risotto meal made on the new stove top. I used a different sauce pot this time around which solved some problems of the stainless steel but presented new ones. None that kept me from churning out passable risotto though.
The sauce that tops the meal provides the source for the title "Green Goddess". I'm not sure if it is meant to evoke the idea of a green goddess, if it is meant for consumption only by green goddesses, or if perhaps it is comprised of one or more green goddesses. Frightening though that last option might be, we can immediately discard it as the sauce was built using solely sour cream, basil pesto, and a little bit of salt. Though I guess you'd also want a little bit of salt from your goddess of choice, too. Just under the topping sauce but also topping the risotto is a bog standard oven roasted asparagus pile. The pile has been cleverly placed to obscure just how much asparagus there is there. I neglected to weigh the bunch provided but after discarding any gross stalks and cutting off the ends what we see above is *less than half* of what was yielded in roasting. It's possible I accidentally received a double portion, but as I said, the weight is lost to time. I like asparagus so it wasn't a problem, just a little unbalanced.
An enameled cast iron sauce pot replaced the stainless steel one for building the risotto base. The induction coils had a much easier time getting this to temperature quietly and the rounds of stirring (adding boiling water, stirring, adding boiling water) went a lot smoother. Where this performed less well was in the initial toasting of the rice. Last time, I had issues because of the residue from the caramelized topping for that meal. The stainless pot is a decent size which provided a lot of surface area for toasting. The enameled cast iron, on the other hand, has a comparatively narrow base despite being close to the same volume. Really, this just made the toasting portion about as fussy as the rest of the risotto construction usually is. It was harder to get an even toast but not impossible. I went a little long on the risotto cycles so it was a bit on the mushy side but that's on me not the pot.
The best choice I could come up with at the time for pairing was the Greywacke Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc (2022). This was an exceedingly crisp Sauvignon Blanc that didn't have the harshness on the finish that sometimes comes with that style. The savory and muted cheese flavors in the risotto made for a good back and forth between sips. In hindsight, this meal would've also done well with a Martini or perhaps a vodka tonic but I'm not disappointed with the wine pairing.
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Closing things out is One-Sheet Hot Honey Mustard Chicken with crispy Brussels sprouts which wasn't an express meal like the previous one but also didn't really require very much in the way of time consuming prep.
An interesting decision in the recipe was to only bread one side of the chicken breasts and use that as the side for the "hot honey mustard" sauce at the end. Another interesting decision was to depart from the standard Home Chef tradition of: put down aluminum foil and spray it with cooking spray. The instructions had you just go straight onto the baking sheet. Well, I don't know if you've noticed my daily driver baking sheet in the pictures, but... it is very well covered in years of baked on grease and whatever. Needless to say, I kept with the foil method for this one. The instructions also didn't specifically call out whether to start the chicken panko side down or not, but using context clues and simple math I determined that the chicken needed to start panko side down so that the sauce could be applied to the crispy side after flipping at the end.
Brussels sprouts didn't get anything special, just some garlic salt along with the pepper and oil. I did get trolled by the sauce instructions, however. It was a microwave method sauce and if left to my own devices I probably would've covered the bowl with a damp paper towel but the instructions didn't specify that so I gave the first half of the microwaving time a try uncovered. Splattered everywhere. The second heating cycle was covered and then I used the damp paper towel to clean up the evidence of my stupidity (which was in vain as I just recounted it to the world).
Moving back to beers for pairing, I chose the Oktoberfest from the Tröegs fall variety pack. The meal itself had a very fall feel and choosing a fall inspired beer seemed the right thing to do. Worked out quite nicely; Tröegs seldom disappoints.
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Trucking right along into the second meal of the box and week, Lemon and Dill Tortellini with zucchini and feta came by way of an "Express Plus" meal which doesn't mean it's more express, just more expensive.
The time saving parts of the ingredient pack consisted of parboiled five cheese tortellini, pre-built cream sauce, pre-juiced lemon, and pre sliced zucchini. I don't think I've yet had a Home Chef meal that required me to build my own pasta, but that might be a neat "Expert" meal card to see some day. The most appreciated time-saver was actually the lemon juice. I don't know what it is, but I hate having to juice citrus. I never feel like I get all the juice out, even if what I've produced is above the required amount for the recipe. The least appreciated, and probably least time saving, was the pre-sliced zucchini. Probably about 60 seconds to wash and slice a zucchini and having it pre-sliced just meant increased exposure. I still had to slice it more as the provided zucchini was, ehm, quite girthy.
Moving along from how the ingredients measure up, the cooking process for the meal was pretty easy and did hold true to the express nature of the recipe card. The induction-ready pot I got as a stop-gap has been relegated to boiling water for pasta and mashed potatoes, I really don't like using it for anything else. It holds more water than the aluminum non-stick I used to use which means I need to take more care when straining into the measuring cup for adding to the sauce later. Luckily, it has a strainer lid which I remembered when I was putting away all the dishes after cooking. All ribbing aside, the dish was quite good and maintained a light refreshing feel even with the cream sauce and cheese components. The dill and lemon helped with this and the massive zucchini slices maintained a little bit of crunch.
Also bringing the refreshing feel and lemon notes was the Snake & Herring Corduroy Chardonnay (2020) that paired with the dish. While my preference remains red for wine, this was a great Chardonnay and couldn't have been more appropriately paired.
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Cajun-Style Shrimp Jambalaya with poblano peppers and rice brings us back to our regularly scheduled Home Chef meal regimen. Shrimp is one of my favorite proteins to add to spicy sauce dishes because it soaks up so much heat and flavor. Chicken was an option for this one, but I stuck with shrimp.
The construction of the jambalaya was done mostly in separate steps. Rice went into the rice cooker. Shrimp was seasoned and pan fried to temperature. The jambalaya base was built in the sauce pot. This allowed a good parallelization of steps, but meant that the only flavor marrying that occurred was at the very end. Typically, I expect things like jambalaya, chili, or spaghetti sauces to spend a lot of time on low heat all getting to know each other. Er, that is know each other within each, not some weird amalgam of jamba-chil-ghetti. This meal card even had the expected time up toward an hour but it really could've used even more time than I gave it; and we all know that I took way more than an hour to finish making this.
A major factor that played into me wishing I had let this simmer longer is that during the jambalaya base construction, a cup of water was added to everything that wasn't rice or shrimp. I thought this was a reasonable amount but it didn't really cook off. After adding the rice and the shrimp to "finish" the dish, it was very soupy. Like, very very soupy. So I bumped up the heat (or... electric field?) and let it simmer a little more furiously for a while. Unfortunately, things remained fairly liquid and the rice and shrimp ended up a little over cooked. None of this really hurt the flavor profile, though. Textures could've been better but from taste alone this was quite good. Decently spicy, too, even taking into account my additions of jalapeños and crushed red pepper.
A seasonal Sam Adams beer, Flannel Fest, makes its debut for this meal. The dunkel style lager was exactly what the sharp flavors in the jambalaya needed to tame them a little. Sometimes Sam misses on their specialty beers, but this one was a winner.
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A non-Home Chef meal! Run for the hills!
For those that don't startle easily, Chipotle Chicken & Rice Bowl with Roasted Squash, Black Beans, and Cilantro Sour Cream came from Blue Apron instead. This guest spot was made possible thanks to a very dear friend that lent me a meal when I had a gap in food deliveries. As a one-off for the week, it got the full shooting treatment and is without plating-only meals to bracket it.
If you've never heard of Delicata squash before, I would count you in good company. The wild zebra stripes give way to a more traditional squash interior and if I had to compare it to something, it is like a slightly tastier and heartier acorn squash. After removing the core of seeds, light seasoning and slow roasting in the oven was all that went into side number one. The rice as side number two, with some added crushed red pepper, was set off to do its thing within the trusty rice cooker which allowed me to focus on the hidden gem of this recipe. Called out simply as black beans in the recipe title, the beans were transformed into a very nicely seasoned re-fried bean mixture that I could've eaten by themselves and been satisfied. The season on the cast iron took a hit, but has since bounced back happily cranking out cornbread.
The chicken main (which was outnumbered in volume here by the rest) came pre-diced and had an easy time taking a sear on the rear "burner" while I fussed with the beans up front and then got seasoned with the titular chipotle, giving it a nice red hue and a smoky and flavorful spice. For the topping, a "cilantro sauce" was provided that seemed to be more or less a cilantro pesto minus the garlic. The volume of topping just edged out my standard clear dish so I had to upgrade to the larger ramekin to contain everything and still have room to combine ingredients. All in all, a very flavorful and filling dish; I'm thankful to my friend for giving it up.
Again we see the Saranac Black Forrest schwarzbier make an appearance. With most of my stock coming from Oktoberfest and Pumpkin variety packs, seeing the inclusion of something like this style helps spread the pairing around.
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If I haven't had Asian-Style Noodles with Peppers and charred green onions before then I for sure have had something very similar. Express meals haven't always been a thing and I feel like the noodle meal I'm remembering was a standard recipe from a while back. Déjà vu notwithstanding, this marks the final meal for the week.
Prep for the meal was straightforward and simple, a reduced amount of tasks helping keep the recipe on track to honor its "express" tag. The only thing to do was slice up the red bell pepper and the green onions into their respective strips. Edamame went in whole and the garlic and chili came pre-minced. Even the noodles were partially cooked ahead of time. The wonton topping did require me to idly crush within the shipping bag but, while more time consuming than you'd think, wasn't terribly difficult.
The sauce was built on the side with corn starch as a thickening agent for the provided garlic sesame sauce and sambal. Near the end of the searing of the veggies, which you can see definitely applied to the red bell pepper, everything else went in to finish the dish. Noodles and sauce were added to the mix and heated up until all were coated and hot. I added in a little extra water to help spread out the sauce and provide more volume to reduce. The echoes of recipe past led me to believe that without a little more volume the noodles would burn. Not sure if that would've happened this time around but the extra time spent in the pan meant things were for sure heated through and well combined.
Saranac makes another appearance here as the pairing, this time in Black Forrest schwarzbier form. Any other night I probably would've leaned toward a lighter red or even a pilsner but I figured the heavy malt notes and crisp bitterness of the schwarzbier would play off of the sambal well. I was mostly correct but the beer was good enough to stand on its own so even if there had been a better option I still enjoyed the rest of it after the plate had been cleared.
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Seitan Curry with basmati rice might hold the record for the shortest Home Chef meal card title. Don't let that fool you, though, this had a lot going on. This was my first time ever having seitan and as I understand it, seitan is essentially as far from gluten free as you can get as it is made up of mostly wheat gluten with some spices. Also, while this wasn't the first meal cooked on the new stove it is the first post where it is shown in prep and cooking shots. Shiny.
As with most Home Chef curries this one also used a small baggie of yellow curry powder. The seitan was browned along with additional minced garlic to start and then the curry powder, tomato, and coconut milk was added in with some water to build the sauce. Since tomato acidity is bad for cast iron seasoning I picked up some enameled cast iron to use for when meals call for high acid ingredients. I'm still learning the ins and outs of cooking on enameled cast iron and seitan was not terribly forgiving. It didn't really sear and release but it also didn't create frond so much as a, like, coating on the frying pan. Luckily, with the addition of the wet ingredients this mostly came up and integrated into the sauce. Was that intentional? Did I know that would happen? Would standard non-stick have done this? These are all questions. I won't answer any of them. If I ever learn the answers, maybe the topic will come up again.
Sides for this dish came in starch and carbohydrate form. The naan was supposed to be toasted in the same cookware that the curry was built in but that meant it would've cooled down by the time I plated so instead I just pulled out a standard cast iron skillet and toasted right at the end. Rice cooker came to my aid again for the basmati rice which, upon completion, had the chopped cranberry and almond added in along with some minced cilantro. Once mixed together, this all ended up rather tasty though I'm not 100% sold on the texture of seitan. It's... bouncy? I dunno, the texture was not what I was expecting. The bounce made it incredibly difficult to incorporate the naan as a utensil so I mostly just snacked on that in between bites.
Sobon Estate Zinfandel Couger Hill (2020) is a bottle I've had hanging around for a while. I definitely wanted a red wine to go with the curry and this one really paired quite nicely. The meal was from the "culinary collection" so selecting a nicer Zinfandel from my stock felt like the right decision. A Cabernet Sauvignon probably would've worked well here, too, but I was in the mood for a Zin.
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Steak Quesadillas with cheddar jack cheese and pico de gallo is a favorite quesadilla style meal of mine to get. I think the actual repeat recipe is called Acapulco Style but the end results are mostly the same. Fitting, a familiar recipe is, to mark my "Cookbook" going over 1000 recipes. This milestone is a little misleading as the online cookbook de-dupes repeat meals and there are a handful included that were forfeit due to FedEx not understanding perishable goods or "this side up" markings. Still, at about 3 meals a week, that's a lot of Home Chef that I've had sent.
The immediate deviation that might stand out is the number/shape/size of the sliced finished quesadilla. Depending on the meal, they will send packs of tortillas that match the requirement; 6 tortillas, sometimes 4 tortillas, and every now and then 2 large tortillas. This recipe required 6 small tortillas and they sent 4. Luckily, I keep large tortillas on hand for other things I cook (yes, I eat things not Home Chef, contain your shock) so I subbed in large tortillas to allow me to use all the filling. This ended up working out quite well as it was easier to divide the filling into two portions instead of six.
The ingredients that went into this meal pulled double-duty for the most part. With the exception of the tomato, all the rest of the pico de gallo components were also used in construction of the filling. A slight difference perhaps from the above mentioned Acapulco style quesadilla meal was a specific initial step to get a good sear on the steak strips which were then temporarily removed while the onions and (extra) jalapeños were cooked down. Continuing the "firsts" on the new oven/range, this was my first quesadilla using induction. It is quite wild how quickly induction heats cast iron and I had to be careful not to scorch the olive oil. Things came out fine and the, albeit slightly larger, quesadillas were tasty and crisp.
Pumpkin beer might not be what most people grab when looking for something to go with a quesadilla, but I wanted something with some sweetness to offset the more savory flavors present throughout the dish. Saranac Pumpkin Ale is exactly what it claims to be and is probably one of the better pumpkin ales I picked up this season.
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Tortilla Pork Chop with zucchini and squash makes the third meal not only posted for this week, but also cooked; bringing the timeline back into alignment with reality. I love pork chop meals and this one didn't disappoint, though I could see it being equally as good if made with chicken.
Without trying, the first box transitioning to the new stove/oven ended up being pretty forgiving. Sure there has been an adjustment period as I learn what worked on the old system that doesn't quite behave the same way on the new one, but for this meal searing pork chops in a cast iron pan and roasting half moon gourds in the oven was not too stout of a challenge. The pork chops seared quite nicely and I was almost sad that the cheese and tortilla strip mixture covered up such nice browning. The cheese melted nicely and contributed savory flavors to the taco seasoning that was applied to the pork chops. I ended up increasing the amount of seasoning used as I had an open packet that needed to be finished. This made it easier to split between the main and the side.
Half moons of zucchini and yellow squash, tossed with the rest of the taco seasoning spent most of the cook time roasting in the oven. Having been burned (not literally... I think) by the new oven cooking faster than expected, I dropped the prescribed temperature a little for this meal and the results were exactly on target. The new oven allows for some user controlled calibration of the temperature settings so that will likely aid even more in me dialing in my cooking style. Cilantro and a thinned out sour cream based crema topped the veggies but also made for a good sauce to run pork chop bites through.
This definitely wasn't an Oktoberfest style meal, but that didn't stop me from having an Oktoberfest style beer with it. The Oktoberfest from Heavy Seas was a standard but well executed festbier whose malt notes meshed well with the taco seasoning present throughout the dish.
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As promised, the final meal cooked with the old range: Impossible Gochujang Bulgogi Bowl with Impossible Beef™ made from plants. Working the title of this meal into the opening paragraph was about as clunky as me having to use a screenshot of the recipe card to stand in for the missing physical recipe card. A fitting send off to the broken oven.
I've had a couple "Impossible" meals in the past but I believe they were both of the burger variety so this was the first time I've had to build a more loose ground meat style dish with it. As far as meat substitutes go, Impossible Beef™ is a pretty decent facsimile of ground beef like you get from a cow. It isn't quite the same, but when it comes to texture and looks, there isn't anything closer. The flavor is fairly neutral and takes on whatever you season it with, in this case, gochujang paste, teriyaki glaze, and pepper (and crushed red pepper). This made for a good flavor profile, especially when mixed in together with the rest of the dish.
The recipe came with more shredded red cabbage than I've ever seen in a meal. I ended up using most of it, taking the initiative to remove any pieces that I deemed unfit for plating and it still made far more cabbage than needed. Less that half of the yield is on the plating shot with the lion's share going into the leftover container. On the lower side of portioning, quick pickled cucumber ribbons. In hindsight, I should've rotated the dish 90° to better showcase them and I ended up pushing them off to the side to have as in-between bite palate cleansers after shooting the plating shot. A quick note about the rice: while I will always use the rice cooker for straight rice recipes, this was one where the spices were added in at the beginning. The black garlic seasoning made for some very tasty rice with a unique texture and I wish I had featured it better in the picture.
All of these interesting and complementary flavors were paired with a Samuel Adams Hoppy Lager which combined two flavor profiles you usually don't see sharing one beer. Having both strong hop and malt elements present in the beer was a good match for a meal that provided both strong earthy flavors with a heft of spice and acid.
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The Sweet & Savory Butternut Squash Risotto with candied walnuts was the first meal I cooked on the new stove but was actually the second meal cooked from the box. There will be one more post with the old oven/stove setup. This was a first time meal as well, so perhaps it was a bit ambitious to tackle it on an entirely new appliance. That said, it turned out alright and had a lot of good autumn inspired flavors.
An interesting decision made in the instructions was to have the candied walnut topping be constructed first in the same pot that was to be used for the main risotto construction. Sometimes they will have you run one part of the meal through a piece of cookware and then reuse that for the next part. That'll pick up any frond built up and is usually seen in meat preparation followed by sauce building. Other times they'll have you reuse something with instructions to "wipe clean," which often I will ignore and just use two different pots or pans since it allows me to compress the cooking time given how slow I am during prep. I bring this up because this was not a "wipe clean" situation which led me to believe they wanted brown sugar residue to play into the initial toasting of the Arborio rice. The result, as you can see, is the rice took on a slightly brownish coloration which is not present in the recipe card picture.
This didn't negatively affect the flavor, just made things look browner. The roasted butternut squash ALSO turned out a bit browner than intended but I attribute that to me learning the new oven. The butternut squash comes pre-diced and this bag was a little more pulpy than others, but I won't lay the entire blame on that. In addition to the candied walnuts and (very) roasted squash, minced fresh sage was added. Of course, as with most of the risotto, butter and Parmesan cheese helped round out the base. For a vegetarian meal it felt appropriately hearty for a cool fall day.
Continuing the theme of appropriately hearty for a cool fall day was the Elysian Dark O the Moon Pumpkin stout that was paired with the dish. This pumpkin stout that contains chocolate and coffee flavor notes managed to provide a crisp bitterness in contrast to the sweet and savory risotto without overpowering the dish.
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Last one for the box back blogging is Mushroom Rigatoni with Goat Cheese Cream Sauce with cheesy garlic bread. This meal was vegetarian by default but I added ground beef to... beef it up (no, I'm leaving it).
The pasta came together as expected. A lot of times the cream sauce is built with cream cheese and a provided cream base sauce but this time they doubled up on the goat cheese and used half of it for the sauce which was very good. Pre-Kroger acquisition, cream sauces got built the long way with a carton of cream being one of the ingredients. While I tend to like recipes that build from scratch wherever possible, having a partially built cream sauce is nice on cook time. I would've liked to have more seasoning on the ground beef, but since it was a customization to the original recipe I suppose that's partially on me.
The real wild card in this meal came during the garlic bread preparation. You might think it looks a little "cell-shaded" in the plating shot. Well, it's not lifted from an episode of "Archer" it is just burned. I learned a couple things about my oven that night. The first is that if the control board that regulates temperature fails, the oven will tell you by beeping a lot and flashing an error message. The second thing I learned was, before that happens, it will try to carbonize your garlic bread. If you look closely in the prior post cooking shot, you can see a lot of ash in the floor pan. I think the oven was over-temp already at that point and it just hadn't outright failed.
Despite all this, the pasta was pretty tasty and that piece of garlic bread was mostly salvageable. The Chateau Gigery Cotes de Provence Rosé (2021) made a repeat appearance here, at this point a wine in search of a food pairing. It went fine with the pasta but I think it went better with the chicken.
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