It's week 9 and I finally make chili.
Here’s what I made:
Butternut Bisque with a coconut swirl
Shiitake banh mi
Meaty beany chili
Cornbread muffins
Roasted and toasted things with wild rice
Butternut Bisque with a coconut swirl
I would maybe make this again
I made 0 substitutions
This would freeze fine
This is a fine butternut squash soup recipe. I think I accidentally made a little bit too spicy, so I ended up adding extra coconut swirled in at the end. I think out of all of the butternut squash recipes I've made so far from Isa Does It, this is just ok. I would definitely make the roasted butternut alfredo pasta recipe over this if I was craving that flavor.
Shiitake banh mi
I would probably not make this again
I made 0 substitutions
Not good for freezing
The shiitake bánh mì is a recipe that I’ve had my eye on for a while, because I really do love bánh mì sandwiches. This one takes a lot of creative liberties, one of them being the almond butter sauce. I have to say I wasn’t a huge fan of it. But that also might be because I am a huge mayo lover (vegenaise is my go-to).
But this recipe does come together easily because you’re really only trimming off the ends of the shiitake, you’re not cutting them up. I did make the sauce and prep the herbs and pickled veg the day before to make sure that this came together quickly for lunch. I ended up with a lot of extra pickled veg also that would be good to use on a sushi bowl.
Meaty beany chili + Cornbread muffins
I would surprisingly make this again
I made 2 substitutions
Would freeze fine
I am not a big lover of chili, so I have been putting off making this recipe, but I was happily surprised with how this turned out. I think ultimately what I don’t like about many chilis is that there is too much cumin in them, and for me, any amount of cumin is usually too much.
I had some friends over for dinner, and we topped the chili with cilantro, Violife Monterey Jack, and sour cream, which was really delicious. I only used one jalapeño and I seeded it because I was a little worried about the spice level, but it wasn’t spicy at all so next time I think I would either leave the seeds in or use the two that the recipe calls for. I also left out the green pepper in this because one of my friends is not a fan, and I honestly didn’t realize that the recipe even included it. This calls for lentils that are supposed to "dissolve" into the broth, but mine stayed whole, so in the future I'd maybe blend at that step or use canned lentils instead of dry.
The cornbread muffins were a good pairing with this and were super easy to throw together. I had the cornmeal on hand from making the polenta recipe a few weeks back. And I also had some frozen corn from that not so great quinoa stew.
Roasted and toasted things with wild rice
I would probably make this again
I made 2 substitutions
Not sure how this would freeze
Ultimately I liked the flavors of this, but I felt like it should come together more easily (I like a one sheet pan meal). I also find that I typically need to cook eggplant for twice as long as the recipe calls for, so this ended up taking longer than the allotted one hour.
Because this is pretty simple in terms of flavors, the quality of ingredients are really going to influence the taste of the final dish. Which I suppose is true for any recipe, but in this case, I used a wild rice pilaf and it just didn't cook great, and the other substitute I made was the mushrooms, I used shiitakes (since I had them for the banh mi recipe anyways) but that was fine.
Weekly reflection
This week I had a leftover green bell pepper from the chili, and knew I was getting radishes and cucumber for the bánh mì, so I picked an off-Isa recipe that’s an absolute favorite of mine, Fattoush salad. The pomegranate molasses really is ideal in this and yes, it’s the only thing that I use pomegranate molasses for. But it’s so worth it.
I am also going on a trip next week, so I did a big meal prep of freezer burritos. Here is the recipe that I love. This time I also made my own tomatillo salsa (with canned tomatillos) and it was really simple and delicious, better than the store-bought stuff, so I think that’s gonna be my new thing!
