Cajun Red Beans and Rice

A definite Cooking Light winner! Though I’d freeze half of the beans and sausage before adding the rice next time, because it made a TON, even more than the recipe said it would (I doubt we’re making it through eight servings of leftovers).

I made two adaptations to this: I cooked the beans in the pressure cooker to speed up that part of the process (since I hadn’t soaked beans), and I used half kielbasa and half Andouille because I had some of the former to use up.

Quick Soba Noodle Salad

I had some leftover cooked soba noodles and turned them into a salad for lunch, loosely based off this recipe.

Tsukune

Japanese meatballs! I’ve made a Cooking Light recipe of these before, but this time we tried one from Tokyo Cult Recipes and we thought it was excellent. Easy, too, and you don’t even need to grill them.

Flounder Tacos

It’s been awhile since I’ve made fish tacos. I was craving crispy fish and thought this NY Times recipe looked like a good use of the flounder I picked up. Very tasty – we only prepared half the flounder, and turned the rest into a basic Japanese fish curry using curry cubes. Pictured with pinto beans recipe.

Tahini Brownies

This is the first recipe I made from Milk Street, Chris Kimball’s new magazine. They were tasty! I probably didn’t need to use the fancy tahini I have for this but hey.

Oyakodon

I liked this recipe quite a bit, though I’m not convinced I got the texture of the eggs quite right.

Pressure Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage

I was happy that I actually made corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day this year (I had intentions to do so last year and had to go into emergency back surgery). The pressure cooker was an easy way to approach this. I am never super into the cabbage/vegetable portions of this dish, but these sure make amazing sandwiches the next day.

Recipe Variation: Stuffed Peppers with Farro

I may like farro stuffed peppers even more than my traditional ones.

I made my basic stuffing recipe, and then made a couple of adaptations:
*Swapped farro for the brown rice
*Actually stuffed the peppers (which meant I parcooked them in the microwave for a couple of minutes after hollowing them out).
*Broiled a little cheese on top at the end.

Pressure Cooker Pinto Beans

I was really happy with this recipe – it makes a ton, and they work as a great Mexican side dish (in our case, accompanying fish tacos) or even as the star attraction of lunch. I froze half for a later meal. These are great with a little bit of queso fresco crumbled over them.

Quick Chicken Pho

May become my go-to pho ga. Nice on a snowy day. I would recommend making a double batch of broth and chicken because if I’m going to put in 30 minutes in the simmering step, I want more than two servings as a result.