Meal Plan: Week of February 9, 2020

Note

In the everlasting pursuit of bettering ourselves – or at the very least our food blog –  we’ve decided to change up the meal plan a bit and go with a more retrospective approach where we post last week’s meal plan, this week.  We feel like this round-up format will be better because we’ll actually test the recipes, know what works and doesn’t work, and will allow us to be more honest with you, our 30 or so precious readers (please don’t leave us – we’ll do more posts with bread we promise!).  Let us know what you think! -Zak

Cook’s Illustrated Buffalo Wings

So yes, the Super Bowl was last weekend. But you don’t need “the big game” (lol, sorry) or to be at a bar to eat chicken wings, society bows to you! We made these wings using a Cooks Illustrated recipe and got a bit ambitious with both their classic buffalo and Korean hot sauce; worth it, both tasty!  In our experience, we wouldn’t recommend the blue cheese dressing – the buttermilk took over, and because we used a more expensive blue cheese it was a tad too spicy (when being bougie goes wrong). Overall, a bit weird.  Now we’ve got a quart of not-great homemade blue cheese dressing in our fridge that we’ll likely find again in May and promptly throw out. Don’t be like us, buy your BCD from the store. -Zak

Cook’s Illustrated Turkey Tacos

Zak’s been wanting to make turkey tacos for what seems like years and ground turkey has been in our freezer for possibly even longer. So we finally bit the bullet and made ourselves some tacos, on a Tuesday (not going to say it).  These were very weeknight friendly – and being the result of white, middle-class, Long Island households, we naturally went with hard shells. Unfortunately, the shells ended up being stale – so I think in the future we might have to buck our upbringing and make the shift to regular tortillas.  I may eventually have to figure out how to homemake some hard shells to scratch that itch though. The success of Taco Tuesday (damnit!) really relies on the fixings, so make sure you’ve got them all. -Zak & Jane

NYTimes’ Endive Salad w/ Egg + Anchovy

This was so good! I wasn’t sure if it would be enough food – but Zak and I had huge salads, and cutting the big pieces of endive & radicchio (we added radicchio…) made it feel more like a full meal. The egg adds substance and the intense anchovy dressing activates all your taste buds. Great winter salad!  -Jane

Bon Appetit’s Thom Kha Gai (Chicken Coconut Soup)

This was so easy. Literally whipped up in like a half an hour. I got the chicken thighs from our local butcher, The Meat Hook, and they very kindly de-boned the chicken thighs and even gave me the skin & bones (for future broth). I must say, it was pretty nice to outsource some of the prep work. Then when I got home, we made the soup base using some frozen homemade stock, popped in the chicken & mushrooms, and it was all set. -Jane

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