Food Talk – Page 105 – Life as Lauren

I am trying this new thing where I don’t post two food photos in a row on Instagram. Partly as a challenge to myself to capture other parts of my life and partly because I don’t want to be that person. Though I’m pretty sure posting as often as I do already makes me that person. Oh well! But that doesn’t mean I didn’t take any food pictures this week, just that I didn’t post them all. Till now, because I’m about to share all our dinners from this past week. Pretend you care, okay?

Sunday: Radicchio, Fennel & Olive Panzanella

Here’s the thing. Loved everything about this except the radicchio. In fact, it is at this point in life that I’m comfortable saying I don’t need to eat radicchio ever again. But I would (and will) totally make this again with another leafy base, like arugula. We made croutons by toasting chunks of French bread tossed with olive oil, lemon zest, salt and pepper and we could not get over how good they were. Gimme a bowl of just those croutons, please!

Monday: Mustard-Glazed Chicken with Roasted Vegetables

Cooking Light did this new thing where they gave a “master recipe” that made a TON of roasted veggies, then two recipes that made use of those veggie leftovers. GENIUS! Sadly, this chicken recipe didn’t really wow me. It was good (but what isn’t good when it’s coated in mustard sauce?!), but not great and I felt like something was missing… like cheese or something rich.

Tuesday: Roasted Vegetable Soup + Goat Cheese Toasts

Two thumbs up for this being the easiest recipe ever. Since the veggies were already roasted, all we had to do was combine it with chicken stock and some spices, then puree and top with crumbled bacon and chopped parsley. Again though, good not great. We felt like the soup itself was missing something. Luckily, the bacon saved the day. The goat cheese toasts were simple and probably didn’t require a recipe but you know, you had me at goat cheese.

Wednesday: Denver Deep Dish

Serious Question: How often do you go out to eat? We probably eat out three times a week and sometimes I feel like that’s a lot and other times (like after I read this column), I feel like that’s pretty good. The pizza place down the street just started doing Wednesday night trivia and this makes my heart so happy. It was tough but we came in second. And this personal deep dish spinach and sausage pizza is always a winner.

Thursday: Egg Sandwich + Sliced Radishes & Flaky Salt

Okay, confession. When Joey is not home to eat dinner with me, I eat weird things. Like last week’s lettuce and hummus tacos. I guess this is an indicator of how I would eat if I was single. This week’s dinner craving wasn’t all that strange but definitely more spontaneous than re-heating Tuesday night’s soup. I just sautéed some spinach then added eggs and goat cheese, scrambled it all up and stuck in between two pieces of toasted Ciabatta. Yeah, I’m still riding that egg obsession hard.

Friday: Roasted Vegetable and Spinach Turnovers + sautéed green beans

The last use for our roasted veggies! The recipe called for French Bread dough but I said no thanks and made my pumpkin pizza dough instead. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… it never fails! And it was also the star of this dinner. For as cute as these turnovers were, the filling was pretty lackluster. One ounce of cream cheese for four turnovers = not enough cream cheese.

So overall, it was a quick and easy week of dinners but not the best recipes I’ve ever tried. You win some, you lose some.

What was the best dinner you cooked/ate this week?

Let that long title serve as an indication that this post is going to be equally lengthy. I’m sorry, but keeping it concise has never been my strong suit.

Well, we did it! Fourteen days, 86 meals, a million dishes to wash and more salads than I thought it possible to consume and we have officially made it through the 2015 Food Lover’s Cleanse. And here’s the thing: food lover’s cleanse > juice cleanse. Because fact: food > juice. Always.

Anyway, I’m renaming it the “cook every single night for two weeks, pack a lunch every single day, make (almost) everything from scratch, cook things you’ve never cooked before and not go crazy in the process” challenge. And to that challenge, I say SUCCESS! And actually, even though we spent A LOT on groceries, cooked something new every night and had to add breakfast and lunch recipes into our lives, I felt it was all very manageable. And somehow, magically, the cooking was very quick and simple and didn’t dirty that many dishes. Dare I say, the clean up at the end of the night was much easier than usual?

To sum it all up, here’s what I loved.

Trying new things. Recipes, techniques, cuisines. It’s exciting to know I can indeed cook a bone-in turkey breast and an entire chicken. Who knew it was so easy? Also, it was nice try a new recipe source that wasn’t the same three blogs or Cooking Light. I have a new found love for Bon Appétit.

Having a partner. Actually, full disclosure, Joey’s been sick all week so I did all the Week 2 cooking (and cleaning) myself and dang, doing it single handedly is harder than sharing the responsibility with someone else. But, it was nice to have someone share in the grocery shopping, meal prepping, cooking and general commitment to the cleanse.

Lunch salads. I like the idea of having a salad for lunch and re-using dinner leftovers to make that salad. I just don’t think I need to do it every single day 🙂

Being told what to do. I know I run the risk of sounding like a total follower here, but it was so dang nice to have someone else do all the work. I get really caught up in making weekly meal plans that are “just right” and contain the “correct” balance of meat, greens, grains and expense. It was so awesome to just leave it up to the professionals, give up total control and do what they said.

Chocolate bark. Wait, I’ve said that before, haven’t I?

Cleanse complaints? My one and only complaint was the breakfasts. They were all really tasty, but some of them were significantly less filling than my normal oatmeal breakfasts. A 150-calorie chia seed parfait is not going to get me from 7:30 AM to lunch time. Oh and I guess the cost was kind of hard to wrap our heads around, but considering we spent $0 on going out to eat, we’re calling it a fair trade off. Also, Joey’s complaint is no breakfast burritos being on the meal plan…

Favorite meal: Unanimously, the pork tenderloin with barley pilaf. More of that please! Though I’ll definitely be adding the scrambled eggs, roast chicken, butternut-tahini purée and a few of the other dinners to my usual rotation.

Now, please enjoy a pictorial recap of the past 14 days. And have a good weekend!