1a. Picture overload! How it went on Week one

It's Friday once again, aka Grocery Day and I've had a pretty successful week with this goal. I was able to get 4 of the 5 recipes made, start using my cast iron pan, worked with lemongrass for the first time, and learned to butterfly a shrimp!

The salmon recipe calls for salmon, obviously. But for some reason I could not seem to get my old standby grocery store that allows pickup to stock it, nor to actually have it ready to pick up on time. 

Here are some pictures and comments: 

Day One, I had chicken to use up from a big roasted chicken I got from my friend Dan who raises them, so I did the Coronation Chicken recipe. 

I'll admit to a substitution here, as neither I nor my husband likes curry flavor too much. 

I used paprika instead, making the recipe my own. 

I don't often make cold dishes for dinner, but this one was really good. 

It has a tropical flavor to it with mango, coconut and cashews in the ingredients.

I also don't usually use leafy greens for a bed to put dinner on, but this called for it. 

I ended up using the lettuce almost as a wrap to eat the chicken. Loved it! 

Coronation Chicken on Butter Lettuce

Day two I tried the Vietnamese Shrimp Noodles with Vegetables. 

There was a lot of chopping involved!

Chopping vegs

The shrimp was precooked but I took a paring knife to the fat part of the shrimp and sliced it almost in half lengthwise. This allowed for more of the garlicky sauce to coat the shrimp and it turned them into curly cues when they cooked. 

Butterflied Shrimp

Lemongrass is interesting. I feel like it was a cross between green onions in shape, but more like ginger root in texture, and smell. And like ginger, it can get "hot" if you use too much. It does not last long once it's cut, turned brown pretty quickly. 

Lemongrass

Here's the final product. It was so pretty!

And you put mint into it, which is a strange but not unwelcome flavor for a noodle dish. 

Learned a lot!

Vietnamese Shrimp Noodles with Vegetables

Next it was time to try out the dessert. 

If you're looking at this Green Tea/Matcha shortbread and asking yourself, why is it not GREEN, so was I. I think since it only called for 1 tablespoon of matcha, it was just not tea-flavored enough. Next time I make this one I'm going to double the matcha. 

But -- really good cookie! Can't go wrong with chocolate dipped and buttery shortbread. 

This is the Flank Steak recipe but I had flat iron steak, which I love more. Overall I liked the concept but it was a muggy day and didn't feel like grilling, so I modified the technique:  after searing, then topping with horseradish mixture, baked it. Still came out medium and the extra horseradish was good with the mashed potatoes. 

Horseradish Flat Iron Steak, blistered tomatoes, asparagus and mashed potatoes

This is the steak resting. Smelled so good. 

The steak resting

Blistering tomatoes. This was a nice addition to the steak, but it could have been left out, to be honest. It gave you a pretty vegetable to balance out the colors and flavors, but if you don't' have any tomatoes, go ahead and make the dish. 

Blistering black tomatoes and grape tomatoes

This felt like the most gourmet recipe of the bunch. 

I had never used my cast iron skillet before, so this was an adventure in searing then baking the pork loin and making the salsa with herbs growing around my house. Make sure you add salt, though, or it's just going to taste oily. 

The watercress - when they say it's peppery, they mean it! I loved it. I had not eaten it much, if at all, and it was such a cool combination with the watercress and salsa. Again, having the food on top of a bed of leafy greens proved to be a good idea. Who knew?

Note, the rice is actually a favorite of mine - Lentils and Rice - that I've been making for years. it went really well with this dish. 

Roast Pork on watercress with Salsa Verde

So, there you have it, week one down! 

What happened to the salmon you ask?

Look, I know we are all busy. But I have this type A personality that needs to be productive and focuses on deep details, so this means I am filling a good percentage, if not all of my time, "doing things". Even when I rest, I'm at least actively reading.

  I love grocery pickups because I hate wasting time waiting for people to move slowly or for the grocery store line up to be 12 people deep and the lady at the counter has expired coupons but insists, they are good. It's my number one pet peeve. 

While I could have just gone to another store and looked for salmon, my tight schedule and my real aversion to fighting through the crowd to get one ingredient just didn't appeal. 

Last week I timed it, so I had gone specialty shopping first then regular pick-up shopping. 

Next week I will do the opposite, and that way as I'm cruising the really cool new shop with only a handful of ingredients to seek out, I'm in a better frame of mind and know what Kroger didn't have in stock. 

Stay tuned for week 2!