A simple weekend, a super soup

Yesterday I made Thai Potsticker Soup for the Souper Bowl Sunday youth group fundraiser lunch at church. The recipe is from CookingWithTraderJoes.com. It’s almost embarrassingly simple, but it’s warm, just a bit spicy and totally delicious. There weren’t leftovers after lunch.

The original recipe says you can add red bell pepper, carrots or other veggies you might have on hand. I haven’t tried that yet. Here’s the recipe as I made it:

Thai Potsticker Soup
1 bag frozen vegetable gyoza
1 11-oz jar Trader Joe’s Thai Red Curry Sauce
32oz vegetable broth
2 baby bok choy, chopped
1/4 cup fresh chopped basil

Add curry sauce and broth to a saucepan over medium high heat. Stir together and bring to a simmer. Add potstickers and bok choy, simmering for 10 minutes until potstickers are heated through. Stir in basil and serve.

The rest of our weekend was just about as simple as that 5-ingredient soup. We had a few outings, but for the most part we just hung around the house reading, watching the Puppy Bowl and eating trail mix.

I’d planned to make Saturdays Make Something New From One of My Cookbooks day, but I did not. Pete did, though. He tried a couple of recipes from “The Star Wars Cookbook.” He made himself several batches of “Hoth Chocolate” — and one for me, using almond milk — and a blueberry granita using some of the last blueberries we’d frozen from his great-grandfather’s blueberry bush. He’s been on an independent streak with his cooking, so I left him to his own devices with the blueberry mashing. That was … probably not a good idea. I don’t know how he managed to get blueberry juice inside the cabinet, but he did. He had fun, though, and the kids enjoyed the frozen treat.

This week’s menu is keeping to the Simple And Not New theme. Here’s what we’ll be having:

Monday: Rotisserie Chicken
Whole Foods sent me a coupon for a complimentary rotisserie chicken and a side. We’ll be using that today.

Tuesday: Spaghetti and meatballs
I doubled my meatball recipe last time I made them, so the meatballs are ready to go in the freezer.

Wednesday: Breakfast for dinner
It’ll be soft-boiled eggs and hash browns for me.

Thursday: Quesadillas
I don’t really have a plan for myself. It’s hard to make a quesadilla without cheese.

Friday: Takeout
I intended this to be an opportunity to try out a new restaurant, but the kids have already informed me that they’d like something from one of their old standby chain restaurant favorites. I’ll likely aqueisce.

Hungry for more? Check out the Menu Plan Monday linkup at OrgJunkie.

The cookbooks are out of their boxes

We’ve spent the last couple of months packing, and then we were moving, and now we are unpacking. It still feels a little surreal to be in a different house and especially strange to be in a different part of town. We’d been in the same general area since we moved here a decade ago, and the view from the other side of town is very different. We’re getting used to it, though, and I’m enjoying finding new favorite restaurants and haunts.

I’m also enjoying unearthing the cookbooks that’ve been packed away for awhile, and after revisiting them I’ve realized that I’ve never made anything out of some of them. So we’re going to fix that by making (most/some) Saturdays Cookbook Day. We’re starting with “Cúrate: Authentic Spanish Food from an American Kitchen.” (Cúrate is a very fancy establishment that I’ve only been to once.) I don’t think I’ve ever made Spanish food before, but I’ve enjoyed eating it a time or two. Most of the recipes in the cookbook are a bit intimidating — squid ink pasta, anyone? — so I found the least-scary-sounding one.

I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to follow a strict schedule for Saturday Cookbook Day. If I decide to go straight across the bookshelf, we’ll be enjoying something from the Vincent Price cookbook one week in the near future.

Saturday: Chicken Breasts with Sherried Mushrooms
I’m not a big fan of mushrooms, but other mushroom dishes I’ve had at Katie Button’s eateries have been wonderful so we’re going to give this a shot.

Narrator Voice: She did not make the Chicken with Sherried Mushrooms.

Sunday: Slow Cooker Cashew Chicken and stir-fried veggies
I pinned this cashew chicken recipe on Pinterest a long, long time ago, and I finally made it last week. It was delicious, but I felt like it needed some veggies. Rather than adding them to the crockpot, though, I’m going to make a veggie stir-fry as a side dish.

Monday: Breakfast for Dinner
I’d never had a soft-boiled egg before my Dad was here to help us move a few weeks ago. He made them for breakfast one morning, and they were delicious. And then he showed me how easy they are to make. We’ve eaten roughly 10,000 soft-boiled eggs since then.

Tuesday: Spaghetti and meatballs
I need to find a sweet spot in the number of meatballs I make. Last time I didn’t have enough to freeze, but there were too many for us to eat at one meal.

Wednesday: Teigen Chicken
So technically these are supposed to be lettuce wraps, but I didn’t like how they fell apart when I made them the first time. I’m going to try my hand at making some Mandarin pancakes — think mu shu wrappers — this time.

Thursday: Carnitas
I picked up a chile verde sauce from Aldi this week, and I’m thinking it’ll go nicely with a pork shoulder in the slow cooker.

Hungry for more? Check out the Menu Plan Monday linkup at OrgJunkie.

In which we serve up a change of venue

We’re moving across town, and knives and dishes and Crockpot and stock pots and everything else in the kitchen is packed and ready to go. So our “menu plan” is a little bit less organized and a lot less nutritious than usual. Wish me luck, and I’ll see you on the other side of this mountain of boxes.

Monday: Turkey sandwiches
Some with mayo, some without. At least one with no turkey, either.

Tuesday: Frozen pizza

Wednesday: Goldfish crackers, an apple and a Kit-Kat

Thursday: Sandwiches again

Friday: Pizza
Ordered, from somewhere

Hungry for more? Check out the Menu Plan Monday linkup at OrgJunkie.