Monsters vs. Dinner

So I can’t exactly say that I am doing the whole30 diet but Michael is, which has inspired this week’s pretty awesome menu of dinners. For the most part, we are eating salads and protein (though I’ve had some dairy, bread and a little sugar) but the constrictions of the diet have forced me to try a few recipes that may have otherwise been off my radar. For example…

This Vietnamese Beef Stew (Bo Kho), made with lemongrass, star anise, ginger. It was a lot of work and cooked for three hours but the results were worth it. Rich, buttery beef with bright distinct and unfamiliar flavors of anise and cinnamon. It would be good with rice but we just had it plain—although I have been making cauliflower rice which is really pretty decent. And this week I had some leftover cauliflower rice which I cooked like fried rice (see above), with bacon and a scrambled egg, plus some frozen mini-veggies. Mack loved it.

I also made another Milk Street Magazine recipe, Moqueca, a Brazilian seafood and coconut stew, which was much easier and excellent—creamy and briny, with shrimp and cod. On a side note: Nate has started eating shrimp if I saute it with Old Bay. Mind-blowing. Trying not to get too excited as to scare him off of it but it’s now two in a row and I think it’s here to stay.

Because we are getting sick of Michael’s very good but very much the same every time vinaigrette, I fudged my way through a new recipe with the rest of the coconut milk from the stew and some vinegar, lime, fish sauce and olive oil. It was good, maybe not something I would make again, but a new twist that fit the diet guidelines.

And finally, and most simply, I sous vide some pork chops then finished them on the grill. Next time I would add some kind of sauce but they were good, especially with the fried cauliflower rice and the leftover veggies from this excellent butterflied chicken recipe (which I randomly found online but will definitely make again.)

Tonight we are going with an Eric Ripert recipe: Cod with potatoes in chorizo mussel broth from the New York Times. It looks complicated but delicious and we bought a beautiful piece of cod at today’s very cold outdoor farmer’s market. It’s not a recipe I would normally turn to so I’m grateful for whole30 for the inspiration and parameters, at least for this week. Next week I’d like to get back to bagels and beer.

I don't usually follow the gadget of the month trends but the Instant Pot? It's f-ing amazing. Here's why you might want one: perfect easy hard boiled eggs; dried to soft beans in 30 minutes; seriously melt in your mouth beef stew:

There are other functions--you can even make yogurt in it but I'm probably never going to do that. The point is, for me at least, it practically ensures a soft tender quality that might take hours of hard work otherwise. Last night-I bought a small piece of pork butt and chopped it in large pieces. Then I tossed it with some olive oil, salt, pepper, cumin, oregano, paprika and chile powder and threw it in the instant pot, along with a chopped onion, a garlic clove and a 1/2 cup of Tropicana orange juice. After 50 minutes the meat was falling apart--I needed a spoon to take it out of the pot. It was the easiest "slow roasted" meat I've ever made. The tender shreds were perfect for tacos—or alone on a plate, maybe with some soft polenta or slaw.