EEE Cooks: Meals from 2002-01

2002-01-01 Mafalde

This is an update to Tripoli family classic meal. We top the pasta with sauce and ricotta cheese. Quite a nice way to start off the new year!

2002-01-03 Peppercorn Steak

What a fantastic meal! We’ve been feeling a little iron-deficient recently, so steaks were definitely in order. Since it’s a little cold out, we cooked the steak on the stove tonight rather than grill it. All things considered, this might be a superior preparation method – the peppercorn crust is wonderful.

2002-01-04 Black Bean Burritos

Friday in our house means two things: we’re tired and we’ve got alot of ingredients lying around that we haven’t used in meals earlier in the week. Burritos are a great meal to use up a variety of ingredients without much effort. And they’re hearty, healthy and delicious to boot!

2002-01-06 Steak Burritos

Who on earth won’t eat leftover steak? We won’t name names here, but we will sub-title this meal “Boppy’s Burritos”. We sauteed the steak in a little bit of chili powder to spice up things and to heat the steak through. We served it over a flour tortilla with white rice and some leftover bean burrito mixture.

2002-01-07 Pancake Dinner

Sometimes you’re just in the mood for breakfast when the day ends. We prepare some pancakes and serve home on the side (it’s just not breakfast without home fries). We normally get some help from our daughter, but she was too busy helping her little brother finish the blueberries we intended to add to the pancakes. Fortunately we kept the chocolate chips out of reach.

2002-01-08 Sausage Polenta and Roasted Asparagus

We’ve been itching for an excuse to finish off the sausage and peppers from a while back. Polenta seemed like a fine excuse since it goes so well with sausage. Roasted asparagus completed the meal nicely.

2002-01-09 Mushroom Polenta

In our continuing effort to use up leftovers whenever possible, we use polenta from last night to make polenta cakes with sauteed mushrooms. We serve it with caesar salad (with plenty of anchovies!) and a butternut squash soup.

2002-01-12 Squash Ravioli

Tonight’s ravioli was a rather creative use of leftovers. We used the an extra roasted butternut squash for tonight’s meal. The butternut squash actually served as the main ingredient in the ravioli filling (with wonton wrappers as the “pasta”). Served with a caesar salad, this was quite a nice meatless meal.

2002-01-13 Crabs Eggs Benedict

“We’re having crabs tonight … I better get my band-aids ready”. Despite what our three year old thinks, this recipe for crab eggs benedict (and hollandaise sauce is safe (at least from crab shells), but it is very rich and very tasty. We serve it with a side of roasted potatoes and salad.

2002-01-15 Pepper Salmon and Ginger Red Lentil Soup

Tonight’s meal waxes towards the extravagant. Some gingered red lentil soup gets us started. The main course consists of some salmon with a pepper crust served with edamame and white rice.

2002-01-19 Beef Tenderloin

Tonight’s meal tastes even better than it looks, which means that it’s absolutely delicious! The beef tenderloin is an update to an ealier recipe. We compliment the meal with some creamy mashed potatoes and a salad.

2002-01-20 Meatballs

Usually, we like to have chopped meat with Fusilli pasta. Nick doesn’t like chopped meat for some reason (everybody has their little idiosyncrasies) so we made some very tasty meatballs instead. We’re not convinced that meatballs are the right way to go with fusilli but this is a nice meal.

2002-01-23 Fusilli and Potato Croquettes

We’re doing our best to clear out the leftovers from Nick’s visit this weekend. Tonight we’re combining fusilli with potato croquettes. That might not sound like the best combination, but it was pretty darn good.

2002-01-24 Black Bean Chili over Cheesy Grits

Black bean chili is usually hearty enough on its own, but we serve it over cheesy grits tonight to make the meal that much more filling. We’re big fans of grits, and like the combination of chili with the cheesy version of typical grits. If you’re unsure of the idea of grits, this recipe in a nice introduction.

2002-01-27 Unfried Chicken

After going back and forth trying to decide if we wanted fried or unfried chicken we went with the latter. A large family brunch put us in the mood for something a little lighter than usual. Besides, we’ve already got fried chicken in our cookbook.

2002-01-28 Pizza

We’ve had some pizza sauce from the BOP (Brick Oven Pizza, in Fells Point) for some time. We used it tonight on two pizzas – a spinach/ricotta pizza and a plain cheese. It was almost like getting take-out from a favorite pizzeria.

2002-01-29 Leftover Chicken, Baby Carrots and Mashed Potatoes

Cold, leftover chicken is one of our all-time favorite meals. We experiment tonight with honey-glazed baby carrots as a side – they turn out rather nicely. Just in case the carrots were not to our liking, we also serve tonight’s meal with the old stand-by, mashed potatoes (which means more potato croquettes soon).

2002-01-30 Broccoli Pie

Too many healthy cooking shows made us feel guilty about all the meat that we’ve been having. We compensate tonight with a quiche-like broccoli pie and salad on the side.

Meals from January 2002