Pinterest Recipes: Spicy Thai Noodles
The Meal Planner


Ahhh Pinterest.  Everybody's newest source for recipes, inspiration (and wasted time;) ).  Why is it so dang addicting?!  Awhile ago, I thought it would be fun to try out some of the more popular Pinterest recipes, the ones that get pinned over and over and over again, and review them.

Do you remember this image?
Photo by Leana at A Small Snippet
It's only been pinned, oh I don't know.....six million times or so?  I first saw these noodles last summer when I first joined Pinterest, and even yesterday it showed up on the most popular page with a crazy buttload of pins.  We were going to a swim/pizza party as a family, but wouldn't be served our pizza until later in the evening.  I had been trying to rack my brain as to what to serve everybody before we left (and almost went with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches), when I realized I had everything on hand to make these noodles.  It was about time I try them!


Recipe from Leana at A Small Snippet
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Serves 4


1-375g box of linguine or spaghetti
2 tsp to 2 tbsp of red chili flakes (depending on how spicy you like it)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sesame oil
6 tbsp honey
6 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 cup green onions, chopped
2 carrots, shredded
1/2 cup peanuts, chopped
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped (optional)

Put a large pot of salted water on for spaghetti to boil.  Once boiling, cook to package directions.

In a small pot over medium heat, add the chili flakes, vegetable oil and sesame oil.  Cook chili flakes for 2 minutes to infuse the oil (you could also add a crushed garlic clove at this point to give the oil a garlic flavor).  Strain out the pepper flakes, and reserve the oil.  Place the oil back into the same small pot, and whisk in the honey and soy sauce.  Set aside.

Drain the noodles once cooked, and place back in the pot.  Toss on the sesame oil mixture and mix well. Add the green onions, carrots, peanuts and cilantro if using.  Toss until mixed well.  These noodles taste fine while hot or warm, but taste even better once cold, so place them in a serving dish and either serve now or place in the fridge for an hour or so.


Click here for printable version of Spicy Sesame Noodles
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THE RESULTS?
We freakin' loved these!  I kept stealing bites of the noodles from the fridge while I was getting ready for the swim party, and then when it was time to eat, I may have possibly made my kids peanut butter and jelly sandwiches anyway, so there would be more noodles for me.  Maybe.

I actually made a half batch of these noodles and scaled the chili flakes way back to one teaspoon so my kids could handle it.  It made it so the noodles were nicely warm on my tongue, but not enough that my kids complained about them being too spicy (although my 4 year old did go "my tongue is hot!" I just gave her a drink of milk and she kept eating them).  If I were to make a full batch I would probably use two teaspoons, again for my kids, but if you like things spicy I would add in one tablespoon or more of chili flakes.  I didn't have any cilantro on hand, and to be honest I didn't miss it at all.

I loved how easy these were to make and they were made with things I always have on hand; that makes them a very likely candidate to be made over and over again.  I liked the mouth feel of the noodles, which is a weird thing to say, but I feel like whenever I've tried to make peanut noodles, they always have this cloying, almost gritty texture from the peanut butter.  These noodles were smooth, velvetty and yet very nutty tasty from the sesame oil.  They were pretty much everything I always want peanut noodles to be.

The ONLY thing I would change about this recipe (and it's not even a big deal) is the name.  "Thai Noodles" doesn't describe these at all, since these aren't Thai ingredients.  I'm going with Sesame Noodles.  Call them whatever you want, it doesn't affect the flavor....everything about them is fantastic.


Meal Ideas:

  • Simply Marinated & Grilled (or baked) Chicken Breasts + Spicy Sesame Noodles

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Meal Plan 51 - Familiar with a Fresh Twist
The Meal Planner



Click here to get a printable version of this week's meal plan and recipes

Grocery List:
The grocery list is color coordinated by meal so you can easily pick and choose which meals you would like to make. Either print and use the grocery list as is and make all the meals I have planned, or easily cross off the meals and corresponding ingredients you would rather not make.

Click here to get a printable version of this week's grocery list



Hey Meal Planners! Look at me staying on the ball with posting!  It helped having a week off work to catch up and schedule a bunch of posts, but what's further helping is our longer days and more sunlight (!) so I can stay caught up.

This week I decided to pick meals that are familiar favorites but with a fresh twist, and I'm pretty stoked for it.  What's on your menu this week?


Day 1: Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches with Salad and Fries
A pub favorite prepared as a delicious sandwich.


These noodles are fantastic and very authentic. You can sub the chicken for shrimp or eliminate the chicken completely to have a vegetarian meal.


Day 3: Sweet BBQ Tater Tot Casserole with Sauteed Green Beans
This reminds me of my childhood when I eat it!  While the tater tot casserole is baking, toss your sweet potato and carrots in the oven to get a head start on tomorrow nights dinner.


Day 4: Curried Sweet Potato, Carrot and Red Lentil Soup with Naan or Crusty Bread
A warm, comforting meal for those chilly nights.  A great vegetarian option.


One hefty, filling main course salad.  Pretty much my favorite taco salad ever.


Bonus: Raspberry Banana Bread
A quick and delicious bread to throw together for snacks or breakfast in the morning.


For more great meal plans, check out my complete list of meal plans.

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Curried Sweet Potato, Carrot and Red Lentil Soup
The Meal Planner


I haven't always been a lover of squash or sweet potatoes, probably because we never ate them growing up.  At times I'm still convinced that I don't like them, and then I eat things like Spicy Sweet Potato Wedges and those thoughts fly out the window.  Sweet potatoes are especially good, diced up and subbed in along with chickpeas in place of chicken for my Slow Cooker Butter Chicken.  Makes a great vegetarian curry.  Another favorite is cutting sweet potatoes into fries and baking them.  I love to serve them with a curried mayo as a dipping sauce.  

I'm not sure why curry and sweet potatoes are such best friends but they do go perfectly together.  Maybe it's the lovely balance of warm spices with the sugariness of the sweet potato.  Either way this is a  fantastic application for some very humble ingredients like sweet potatoes, carrots and red lentils; all pantry items.  It's easy to toss the potato and carrot in the oven to roast along with whatever you are having for dinner and throw together this soup to have in the fridge for lunches or a quick dinner the next night.

Recipe adapted from Dinner with Julie
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Serves 4

1 medium sweet potato
3 medium carrots, cut into 2 inch chunks
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1 tsp mild curry paste
6 cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
2/3 cup red lentils
Salt 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Pierce sweet potato all over with a fork and place on a baking sheet covered in aluminum foil.  Roast for 40 minutes.  Add the carrots to the pan, toss with some olive oil and roast sweet potato and carrots together for 20 minutes.  Remove from the oven.  (The sweet potato will definitely be done by now, but check to make sure your carrots are tender. If not continue to roast them until they are). 

Meanwhile, in a large pot over medium heat, add a bit of olive oil.  Add the onion, garlic and ginger and saute until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes.  Add the chicken stock and red lentils and bring to a boil.  Turn heat down to low and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the lentils are tender.  

Peel the skin off the sweet potato (should come off really easily) and place half of it in a blender, along with half the carrots and half the chicken stock/lentil mixture.  Puree until smooth and pour into a serving dish.  Place the rest of the sweet potato, carrot and stock/lentil mixture and puree until smooth and then add to the serving dish.  Alternatively, if you have an immersion blender, puree everything right in the soup pot.  Season to taste with salt and serve.

Click here for printable version of Curried Sweet Potato, Carrot and Red Lentil Soup

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RESULTS?
Like I said, I like to roast my carrots and sweet potato while I'm making dinner.  After dinner, I finish the soup and put it in the fridge, which makes it taste even better the next day since the flavors have had time to develop.  While you could easily just simmer the sweet potato and carrot in the chicken broth, roasting just enhances the caramel flavor in both the root veggies. The curry isn't hot or super pronounced, just a nice subtle warmth to add to the sweetness.  My husband and I loved it (both times I made it in the last week and a half), and I was even more happy to hear my kids say "yummy soup Mommy!"

Meal Ideas:
  • Curried Sweet Potato, Carrot & Red Lentil Soup + Homemade Bread (this one's fantastic)
  • Curried Sweet Potato, Carrot & Red Lentil Soup + Mixed Green Salad with Sliced Pears or Apples, Goat Cheese and Vinaigrette
  • Curried Sweet Potato, Carrot & Red Lentil Soup + Pakoras with Mango Chutney
  • Curried Sweet Potato, Carrot & Red Lentil Soup + Naan 

Thank you Facebook Fans for your awesome meal suggestions!

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Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches
The Meal Planner

Originally posted May 22, 2009.  Photo and text updated Feb 27, 2012.


Do you think it's possible to be addicted to Buffalo Chicken Wings? My husband and I host Community Group in our home every Wednesday evening, which just so happens to be cheap wing night at a local pub.  Steve ends up going out with friends after Community Group almost every Wednesday because he can't get enough Buffalo Chicken wings.  While I have to stay home because our kids are sleeping, he does bring me home some, so it's win win.  Much to my husband's excitement, a few years ago I turned his pub favorite into this easy dinner entree.  

Another win.
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Serves 4

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Salt and Pepper
Paprika
Chili powder

Sauce:
1/2 cup hot sauce (We like "Frank's"....you can also find "Buffalo Wing Sauce" and skip the butter)
2 tbsp butter

Ranch dressing or blue cheese dressing
4 buns
Lettuce


Season chicken with salt, pepper, chili powder, and paprika. Drizzle a frying pan with oil and heat over medium-high heat. Once hot put the chicken in and cook for about 5 minutes. The chicken will get nice and brown. Flip over and cook about 5 minutes on the other side, or until chicken is cooked through.

While the chicken is cooking, place the hot sauce and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Once the chicken is done cooking, place in sauce and stir to completely cover chicken in sauce.

If you like you can toast your buns, cut side up under the broiler for 1-2 minutes until browned.  Serve chicken on a bun with lettuce and drizzle with ranch or blue cheese dressing.


Click here for a printable version of Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches
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THE RESULTS?
Love it. Love it. Love it.  'Nuff said.

To make these sandwiches kid friendly, I skip putting their chicken in the buffalo sauce and just stick with the ranch dressing and lettuce on a bun.  Ranch is pretty much their favorite condiment ever, so they love it.

Meal Ideas:

  • Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches + Carrots and Celery Sticks with Dip
  • Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches + Fries + Salad
  • Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches + Twice Baked Potatoes
Leftover Ideas:
  • Take leftover buffalo chicken breasts and chop up.  Place over a salad with thinly sliced carrots, celery, green onions, and either ranch or blue cheese dressing.

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Meal Plan 50 - Family Favorites
The Meal Planner



Click here to get a printable version of this week's meal plan with recipes

Grocery List:
The grocery list is color coordinated by meal so you can easily pick and choose which meals you would like to make. Either print and use the grocery list as is and make all the meals I have planned, or easily cross off the meals and corresponding ingredients you would rather not make.

Click here to get a printable version of this week's grocery list



Here's some of our very favorite recipes, compiled into one week.  I made sure to prep ahead when possible to cut down on time spent later, and put the easiest meal at the end of the week for when I'm tired and don't much feel like cooking.  I only plan 5 meals for the week to account for leftovers, eating out, or macgyvering dinner out of the leftover bits in my fridge/pantry at the end of the week.

Happy eating!

Day 1: Won Ton Soup with Asian Salad
Our family loves this soup so much.  You'll need to allot yourself 30 minutes or so to assemble all the won tons, but the soup is a cinch after that.  You'll also be making double what you need, so you can save the rest in the fridge for tomorrow nights salad.

Day 2: Won Ton Chicken Salad
Mmmm....crispy won tons in a salad?  Sign me up!  This salad is crispy, crunchy, sweet and sour, and sure to please.  Toss some chicken breasts covered in BBQ sauce in the oven to cook, while the chicken for the salad is cooking and set aside for dinner on Day 4.

Day 3: Vindaloo-Korma Curry over Rice
My Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala and Slow Cooker Butter Chicken recipes have been getting all the Pinterest lovin', but this curry is one of my absolute FAVORITES. It's spicy and sweet with fantastic flavor.  While I've never tried it before, I'm sure it would adapt well to being tossed in the slow cooker once the chicken, onions, garlic and ginger have been cooked.

Day 4: BBQ Ranch Chicken Tostadas with Avocado Corn Salsa
The chicken has already been cooked for you another night, so you need only bake the tortillas, prepare the salsa and assemble.  Easy easy!

The hoisin cashew beef is quick and easy to pull together.  If you made double the rice on Day 3 then that part is done for you too!  Just pile rice and meat into lettuce cups and enjoy an easy and delicious meal.


Bonus: Frozen Lime Pie
I never add dessert to my meal plan, but this one is so fast it's nice to treat the family.

For more great meal plans, check out my complete list of meal plans.

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This Hope Prevails
The Meal Planner


Did you know my husband is an amazing musician?  At all times, he's got a bunch of music projects on the go, always creating and making beautiful music.  When we were buying a house, we had to look for one that would easily house a music studio and we ended up finding one with a detached garage; a total mancave.  It's entirely his for making music.  

All that to say, he's released a couple albums recently.  They are completely FREE to download so check them out:

  • This Hope Prevails - is a five song worship EP.  My husband Steve creates electronic beats, so it's not typical worship music.  

  • Sad, Beautiful, Modern Things - a post-rock project that he wrote with two other guys while in the mountains for 5 days.  Think "Explosions in the Sky" or "Sigur Ros".



(Thanks for reading and letting me take a little detour from food ;) )

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Cookbook Review: Quick Fix Meals
The Meal Planner

 Quick Fix Meals

I picked this cookbook off the shelf at my Dad's place last Spring.  I had accepted a full-time teaching position and knew that my life was about to get a WHOLE lot busier, but wasn't quite sure how to work in the dinner thing.  I read through this entire cookbook as if it was a manual.  I marked and bookmarked recipes to try, wrote down her strategies like Meal Kits, Morphing It (making one large recipe and then two to three subsequent recipes) and Dinner Express (less than 30 minutes) and even got ideas for how to adapt my own recipes into these strategies.  Since it was Spring when I was reading through it, I wanted to wait until the Fall when I was working full-time to really test out the recipes.  Do the strategies work?  Do the recipes taste good?  Can I get dinner on the table after working all day, picking the kids up from daycare and coming home exhausted?

Here's what I loved about this cookbook:

The ideas are fantastic and they do work.  I would spend an hour or two in the kitchen on Sunday afternoon while my kids napped, prepping meals, making "meal kits" and knocking a few recipes off the list.  When the week came, I was prepared.  Dinner was ready in 5 minutes with very little prep from this exhausted mom.  At first I was quite snobby towards the idea of pre-cooking then reheating pasta and the like, but it's really not horrible like I thought.  It actually tastes totally fine, and the time saved is awesome, like Angel Hair with Creamy Turkey Sausage and Wild Mushroom Sauce.  This dish was creamy and flavorful and the whole family liked it.  I tossed my pre-cooked pasta with the heated up sauce and dinner was on the table in no time.  In the same afternoon I made Baked Ziti with Turkey Sausage.  This was a casserole that I cooked and pre-assembled.  Later in the week, I came home and tossed it in the oven, quickly made a salad and then put my feet up while dinner baked.  

I also love that Miller thought outside the box in terms of what types of meals could be "morphed".  It's pretty typical to have a standard roast chicken recipe with subsequent shredded chicken quesadillas, chicken noodle soup, etc, but Miller's creativity is inspiring.  She morphs things like Herbed Fish Cakes, Roasted Salmon, Oven-Fried Chicken, Chicken Cacciatore and these Smoked Cheddar Stuffed Burgers.  These tasted great the first night and only took a few more minutes to prepare double what I needed, but then I was able to make Vegetable Beef Soup (called Vegetable-Beef Stew with Yukon Gold Potatoes in the book) and Spaghetti and "Meatballs" later in the week.  Neither "morphed" recipe had me overly excited...until I tasted them.  They were simple, good, comforting meals that my family loved.  

I was also happy to see that Coconut-Lime Chicken with Chiles from the Dinner Express chapter, actually took 20 minutes to make like it said it would.  Sometimes, chefs have a different idea of what can be prepared in 30 minutes than the average home cook does.  

Robin Miller is very experimental in her flavor combinations, which I love. Her recipes aren't typical and she is very cross-cultural.  Her un-typical recipes choices leads to some pretty amazing and exciting flavor combinations like Apricot-Jalapeno Chicken with Sesame Noodles.  The sauce for the chicken is made of pureed pickled jalapenos, apricot preserves and cilantro, and served over soba noodles that have been tossed with sesame oil, green onions and minced pickled ginger.  I would have NEVER thought to put all those things together, and yet it created this spicy sweet sticky chicken and all the flavors melded beautifully (this recipe for Honey-Jalapeno Chicken from her show on Food Network is very similar, except she swapped a fresh jalapeno for 1/2 cup pickled jalapeno, honey for apricot preserves and a rotisserie chicken for the chicken breasts....if you want to try it).  

She has a whole chapter on Simple Sides which is nice.  It's easy to do something like a pot of rice or a bagged salad as a side dish, but I liked that her ideas were still quick and simple, yet exciting. One of my favorite dishes I tried from this cookbook was her recipe for Teriyaki Bok Choy with Cashews.  I have a new favorite Asian side dish!  It's a simple saute of bok choy with sesame oil, a pinch of red pepper flakes and a bit of teriyaki sauce.  Finished off in 5 minutes with a sprinkling of cashews.  Dead easy and yet different than what I would normally do.

Other things to love about this cookbook: she has desserts!  This ridiculously easy Frozen Lime Pie I was able to make on the busiest night of the week and proudly serve dessert to my guests. I even had a couple people ask for the recipe!  Her Raspberry Banana Bread was also fantastic and I had it mixed up and in the loaf pan before the oven had even preheated.  Miller is also a nutritionist so I trust that her recipes aren't full of fat or calories.  
The raspberry-banana bread actually doesn't even have a drop of oil or butter in it and very little sugar, yet still turned out (and tasted) wonderful.  She likes to swap chicken broth for oil, which is okay sometimes (but not so great in salad dressings). 

Okay.  Some of the things I didn't love:

In a few cases, Miller is rewriting and offering up the same recipe over and over again.  Chicken Salad with Peanut-Lime Vinaigrette (pg 90) is almost exactly the same as Thai Chicken Salad with Peanuts and Lime (pg 106).  Roasted Salmon with Sweet 'n' Hot Mustard Glaze (pg 68; which we loved by the way) and Tarragon Salmon with Sweet 'n' Hot Mustard Sauce (pg 184) and Sweet Mustard Glazed Salmon Fillets (pg 185) were basically (as you can imagine) the same recipe.  She swaps tarragon for dill, or cumin and brown sugar for honey, thats it.  As a reader/purchaser of this book, I feel a little ripped off.  The book boasts "200 simple, delicious recipes", but if you rewrite the same recipe over and over it's more like, what....195 recipes? 192?  In both cases, it could have been one recipe with a note saying "swapping dill for tarragon is a great substitution" or "try brown sugar and cumin next time instead of honey".  

As much as I loved her creativity in the "Morph It" section, one of the flaws is the INSANE prices you would pay for the ingredients.  Red Wine and Black Pepper Glazed Filet Mignon requires you to buy FOURTEEN filet mignon steaks to then turn into Artichoke Steak Melts with Smoked Provolen and Basil Mayo, Steak Soft Tacos with Asparagus Spiked Guacamole and Steak & Marinated Vegetable Salad over Acini de Pepe.  Don't get me wrong, the recipes sound fabulous, I could just NEVER afford to buy those ingredients for 4 nights worth of meals.  Maybe this is a silly critique, since this book is not an "eat cheap" or "cook affordably" cookbook, it's about saving time in the kitchen.  And in her defence, she does save the home cook time in the kitchen and she helps us do a tasty job doing it.

In the end, I actually loved this cookbook more than I thought I would.  I'd had some flops before, having tried some of Miller's recipes from the Food Network website, and wasn't so sure she could convince me that this cookbook was both useful AND delicious. But she proved me wrong.  I might just have to steal this book a little longer from my Dad.

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