Category Archives: Simple Weeknight Favorites

From America’s Test Kitchen

Wrap-up — Simple Weeknight Favorites by America’s Test Kitchen

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I’ve let this wrap-up wait for far too long; I’ve moved on to another cookbook. As I have with my other America’s Test Kitchen books, I’ll probably come back to this one occasionally. But for now, here are my thoughts on “Simple Weeknight Favorites.”

First off, I like this book. I’m glad I bought it, despite having a gazillion other books by these guys. Looking back through my posts, I only found two dishes that I disliked, so that’s a pretty good ratio.

Most of the main proteins are simply grilled or baked meat/fish, and it’s the sauce poured over the top or the veggies served on the side that stand out for me. Those are the parts of the dishes that I remember. Most of the recipes were pretty quick to make, but they do require a well-stocked pantry; some of the ingredients are not things I keep on hand, so careful meal planning and shopping is important. Because of that, I don’t think of these meals as simple (hey, they’ve got another cookbook for that).

Here are some of my favorites:

Pasta with Lemony Chicken and Asparagus. Pasta. Lemon. Chicken. Asparagus. Four of my favorite things in one dish. This made me happy. And it was easy to make.

Flank Steak with Spicy Peanut Noodles. An easy, flavorful dish with a very versatile sauce.

Coconut-Lime Chicken and Cabbage-Mango Slaw. Fresh, spicy and filling. Rereading my review and remembering how much I liked this salad makes me want to make it for dinner tonight.

And here are the two dishes that I didn’t like:

Grilled Dijon Steak. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t like this dish flavor-wise as that it just didn’t work (the mustard stuck to my grill, not to my steak). And to be fair, I can be a spastic cook, so for all I know, it was entirely my fault.

Moroccan Fish and Couscous Packets. This was just blah. As I wrote in my post, spicy but blah.

Strip Steaks with Sweet Pepper Ragout

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As the days have gotten hotter here, I’ve been less and less inclined to spend time in the kitchen. Less time in the kitchen means less fodder for the blog, so be patient with me.

I made this dish a few weeks ago, before it got too hot. The steak is pretty straightforward, and it really isn’t the point of this recipe. Cook a steak, anyway you like it. Let it rest, then cut into thin strips.

On to the sweet pepper ragout.

I had a bag of peppers that were aging faster than we could eat them raw, so this recipe seemed like a great way to use them. Since then, I’ve made this dish a couple of times to serve with grilled chicken. It is quick but very tasty, and if you are watching what you eat, this is a great way to get lots of food for very few calories.

You start off by thinly slicing three peppers (red, yellow, orange or whatever combination you happen to have) and an onion. The onion and peppers go into a skillet (the same skillet you cooked the steaks in, if that’s how you cooked the steaks) and are cooked until they are tender but still crisp. Two garlic cloves, minced, are added to the skillet, followed by a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. This mixture is simmered for just a minute, then served alongside the steak.

I love peppers to begin with, but this gives me a whole new way to serve them. The onion, garlic and vinegar add more flavor without overwhelming the peppers. I like to start the onion a few minutes before adding the peppers so they soften a little more (I don’t like crunchy onions).

Cod Cakes with Garlic-Basil Aioli

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Recently, I bought 10 pounds of cod. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Then I baked some and discovered that I don’t really like baked cod. Fortunately, I have this recipe to fall back on (after all, I still have 9 pounds of cod to use). And thanks to this recipe, I’ve now discovered garlic-basil aioli.

Garlic-basil aioli, where have you been all my life?

These little fish cakes start out with the aioli. You take mayonnaise, fresh basil, garlic and lemon juice and process them together until the mixture is smooth(ish) and pale green. Next you move onto the cod cakes. They start by pulsing cod fillets in a food processor until they are roughly chopped. To the fish, you add some of the aioli, an egg, panko bread crumbs, green onions and salt and pepper. You form the mixture into patties, dredge the patties in more panko bread crumbs and then fry them until they are golden brown.

These were utterly delicious. They weren’t fishy at all, they had good flavor on their own and the crispy crust was a delightful contrast to the soft interior. The aioli didn’t overpower the cod cakes, but it gave them some zing. I added a bit more lemon juice to my aioli because I wanted more of the tartness. The lemon juice also cuts the fat of the mayonnaise and makes the whole mixture feel lighter.

Even leftovers were pretty good. Of course the crust softened up, but a few minutes in a skillet, and the leftovers were as crunchy as they were on the first day.

Flank Steak with Spicy Peanut Noodles

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I have no excuse for leaving this blog quiet for so long. Well, I have lots of excuses, but they are all pretty boring and standard. So please accept my apologies. Shall we move on? To, say, grilled flank steak with spicy noodles?

I was amazed at how quickly I was able to put this meal together. While the steak was grilling, I made the spicy peanut sauce in a blender. While the steak was resting, I tossed fresh Chinese noodles into boiling water for a couple of minutes, drained them and tossed them with a couple tablespoons of the sauce. Slice the steak and dinner was served. And it was good. Really, really good. Like I love this sauce and will be using it constantly, on everything (well, maybe not pancakes), all the time. Fortunately, the recipe makes quite a bit more sauce than you need.

To make the sauce you blend until smooth peanut butter, light coconut milk, lime juice, fish sauce, garlic, sugar and a couple teaspoons of Thai red curry paste. Watch out for the Thai red curry paste. The recipe calls for 4 teaspoons, but that was just a bit too spicy for me. I ended up adding a bit more lime juice and coconut milk to tone down the heat. The sauce tastes fresh, a bit sweet from the sugar, but more tart due to the lime juice. The peanut flavor is pretty dominant, but I could hardly taste the coconut milk. And the fish sauce and garlic add just a touch of salty funk. I’ve already used the sauce on grilled chicken and a veggie pasta salad. I can see using the sauce on fish, such as cod, or even with roasted or steamed cauliflower. This is quickly becoming my go-to Asian peanut sauce.

Coconut-Lime Chicken and Cabbage-Mango Slaw

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Salad season has arrived.

(I’m going to ignore the fact that I had to turn on the heat in my house this morning. Also, today was the first day in a week that I actually saw the sun.)

As Bryan will tell you, I don’t believe in delicate salads. If I’m going to eat salad for a meal, I want a salad with substance and lots of stuff in it. I want to see a garden of colors and bite down on many different textures. And if the salad is tossed with homemade ranch dressing (preferably buttermilk ranch), so much the better. And I don’t like fruit in my salad. Nuts yes. Fruit no.

So this slaw had a couple of strikes against it right off the bat, but I was intrigued enough by the coconut-lime dressing to give it a try. Also, I had tried something fairly similar at a well-known chinese bistro-type restaurant not too long ago.

You start off by poaching a couple of chicken breasts in water, fish sauce and Asian chili-garlic sauce. Once the chicken is cooked, you shred it and toss it in a dressing made of more fish sauce, more chili-garlic sauce, lime juice and cream of coconut. The dressing is also used on a slaw of cabbage, diced mango and cilantro. Everything gets tossed together and topped with chopped, roasted cashews.

I really, really liked this slaw. The chicken gives the salad enough oomph to make it suitable for a meal. The dressing is a little sweet, a little tangy, a little funky (from the fish sauce) and quite spicy. Then you have the coolness and sweetness of the mango and the buttery crunch of the cashews. I have to admit to doctoring the salad up a bit after I took this pictures. To add a little more color and crunch, I mixed in a chopped orange bell pepper and a handful of cherry tomatoes.

I also fudged a bit on the dressing. The recipe calls for 5 tablespoons of cream of coconut. I tasted the dressing after 4 tablespoons, and it was quite sweet and coconutty. So I added another tablespoon of lime juice and left out the last tablespoon of cream of coconut. Just one teaspoon of chili-garlic sauce was enough to keep my mouth tingling, so if you don’t like spicy, you might want to cut it down to a half of a teaspoon of chili-garlic sauce. This slaw is best eaten the same day it is made; the lime juice really softens up the cabbage and you lose that crunchy texture.

Grilled Dijon Steak

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A crazy few weeks has left me little time to cook, but I did manage to get this steak on the grill for a quick, weeknight supper. I loved the simplicity of the dish, but I didn’t like the simplicity of the flavor. It is one of the very few dishes from the folks at America’s Test Kitchen that has fallen short of my expectations.

You can’t get any quicker or simpler than this dish. You take a flank steak, brush dijon mustard over the surface of it and grill it. That’s it. There isn’t even any salt and pepper in sight. Well, there is a salad of red potatoes and green beens that goes alongside the steak, and that has salt and pepper in it, but I decided, in the name of not having to go shopping for green beans and potatoes, to leave the side dish out.

Everything was going well. I had a nice flank steak, brushed with dijon mustard, grilling. Then I turned the steak over, and all the dijon mustard stayed on the grill. The same thing happened on the other side. I was left with a naked steak that wasn’t even seasoned properly (I should have been suspicious when I realized that the instructions didn’t include using salt and pepper on the steak).

In the end, the flank steak was nicely grilled, but there was no dijon mustard flavor left on it. Nice idea; bad execution.

Mini Barbecued Turkey Meatloaves

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Who doesn’t love meatloaf? Who doesn’t love single-sized servings? Throw in some barbecue sauce, and you’ve got a meal that is hard for anybody to resist.

You start out by reducing commercial barbecue sauce until it is thickened. I have to confess that I skipped this step. Completely. In fact, I’ll probably just cross out those instructions because I don’t think that step is necessary (unless you have a really thin barbecue sauce to start with, and, well why would you want to do that?)

Moving on. To make the meatloaves, you mix together a couple tablespoon of the barbecue sauce, ground turkey, sweet Italian turkey sausage, crushed saltines, chopped parsley, an egg, whole milk and minced garlic. Form the mixture into small loaves and brown them on all sides on the stovetop. Finally, you brush more of the barbecue sauce on the meatloaves and let them finish cooking in the oven.

I really liked this dish. The meatloaves were tasty and tender. Make sure you use a barbecue sauce that you like (I used Bulls-Eye) as the flavor is pretty prevalent. I liked that you could make the meatloaves just about any size you want, you just have to adjust the cooking/baking time. You could also make meatballs, if you so desired.

Orange-Ginger Pork Tenderloin and Carrot Salad

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Around our house, it’s all chicken, chicken, chicken until I make something like this dish, and I remember how much I like pork tenderloin. Just as easy to prepare as chicken, pork tenderloin is mild and tender and goes good with just about anything. And, most importantly, it makes great leftovers.

You start this dish off by combining freshly squeezed orange juice, orange marmalade and ginger in a small bowl. Part of this mixture is set aside for the pork. The rest of the liquid becomes the basis for the carrot salad. To make the salad you add grated carrots, cilantro, cumin, cinnamon, salt, pepper and olive oil to the bowl, toss everything together and set it aside so the flavors can meld.

To make the pork tenderloin, first you season two pork tenderloins with salt and pepper and then sear them on the stovetop until browned. Once you’ve got a nice crusty exterior on the meat, the remaining orange juice mixture is added to the skillet and the pork finishes cooking as the liquid reduces and creates a glaze for the meat. To help the meat stay juicy, the tenderloins rest for a few minutes before being sliced and served with the carrot salad.

I really liked the flavors of the orange juice with the pork. As is usual for us, I cut the amount of ginger by at least half (the recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of fresh, grated ginger; I used just over a teaspoon), and the ginger flavor was still pretty strong and a bit spicy. I’m on the fence with the carrot salad. It was a nice change of pace from simply steaming carrots, but it didn’t seem substantial enough next to the pork.

Overall, I really liked the meat (and the leftovers were fabulous). I had the meal on the table in under 45 minutes (peeling and grating the carrots took up a good chunk of time). Instead of using freshly squeezed orange juice, I think you could probably go with commercial juice (it does get cooked down), especially if you aren’t making the carrot salad. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

Moroccan Fish and Couscous Packets

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I was not impressed with this dish. Besides looking like a steaming mess, it was very blah. Spicy, but blah, if that’s even possible.

You start out by making chermoula, a Moroccan condiment made of cilantro, olive oil, paprika, ginger, garlic, lemon zest and juice, cumin and red pepper flakes. These ingredients get ground into a chunky paste (I used my food processor). The chermoula is spread over fish fillets, cod in my case, set on top of precooked couscous and wrapped in tinfoil, much like this fish dish. The foil packets are baked for about 15 minutes until the fish is done. The idea here is that the spicy chermoula flavors the fish and couscous, and everything stays moist in the foil packet.

I like the idea, but this dish just went wrong somewhere. The chermoula was cloudy and dark. The fish was crunchy and flavorless. The only good thing was the brown rice I used instead of the couscous.

Pork-and-Sausage-Stuffed Peppers

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As much as I liked these stuffed peppers, I’m not sure they fit in the “simple” category.

First you have to precook the peppers in the microwave until they are tender. While the peppers are cooking, you brown ground pork and sweet Italian sausage, along with onions and garlic. Once the meat is cooked, you combine it with precooked rice or ready rice and grated pepper jack cheese. Then you dry up the bell peppers, stuff them with the pork mixture, sprinkle some more cheese on top, and broil the peppers until the cheese is melted and bubbling. Only after all that do you get to eat.

Actually, it wasn’t that hard to put these peppers together; it just felt like a lot of steps. Fortunately the end result was worth the work. By precooking the peppers, you avoid having crunchy peppers, and you only need to boil them to melt the cheese. Even leftovers reheated well. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that these are not low calorie (I don’t know about you, but when I think of stuffed peppers, I think of dieting). With fatty ground pork, pork sausage and almost a pound of cheese, they are deceptively rich. I think you could use ground turkey here with less sausage and less cheese. But boy, does that pork go well with the peppers.