Good Eats at Home

The post title partly refers to the title of a popular cooking show that we always enjoyed on the Food Network. And, describes what's been happening at out home during self-isolation. We've been cooking at home a lot more vs. take-outs from local eateries.

Good Eats is/was (not sure if it has returned) was created and hosted by Alton Brown. He explained how to create a meal, and included wacky teaching methods to explain how ingredients interacted when put together.  (Update: Good Eats Reloaded is available on the Cooking Channel. I watched a couple of new episodes online. It’s still a fun show.)

NH has thankfully been less corona virus impacted than some neighboring states. We've been in self-isolation mode since mid-March (how time does go by) and cooking more with favorite recipes. Home cooking isn't something new for us as we enjoy meal prep and working in the kitchen, just not at the same time, due to space constraints in our galley kitchen. And, clean-up is the least favorite part of the process.

None of our dinner recipes have been complicated ones. We like to cook but the easier and quicker the better for us. That said, one-pan/pot meals are huge favorites. (Did I mention we both dislike cleanup?)


Shown above are a few tried and true favorites — sheet pan roasted chicken and vegetables, stuffed peppers, and pasta e fagiola (often called pasta fasul or fazool). The last one is a traditional Italian pasta and beans dish commonly made using cannelloni beans and pasta, traditionally ditalini. The soup base includes olive oil, garlic, onion, celery, carrots with tomatoes. It's best served with chunky fresh-baked bread. Yes, we've been making bread too, hasn't everyone?  

The stuffed pepper filling was leftover meatloaf with added rice and tomato. Leftover meatloaf is good, but a different meal was better.

Yes, pizza has been on the menu quite a few times in many different varieties and toppings: sausage, pepperoni, extra cheese. The Lodge cast iron pizza pan purchased on our cross country trip 2 years ago has been getting a real workout. We've used store bought pizza dough in the past, but recently have started preparing our own dough, after all we do have the time and, lately, the flour and yeast too.

No recipes have been included in this post for several reasons — there's so many available online, everyone has a favorite recipe/method and, more importantly, space because who wants to scroll through several long recipes in a blog post? (No, I didn't think so either.)

Before and during meal prep photos also have been excluded since it's really difficult (and quite messy) to snap a pic when working solo in the kitchen (as mentioned earlier we work alone).
Now, at the risk of making you hungry, above are a few more recent meals and none were difficult. Clockwise from the top: sausage with peppers, onions and potatoes was another easy oven-cooked, one pan meal. Chicken pot pie was easily done using store-bought rotisserie chicken, a frozen pie crust and either fresh or frozen peas and carrots with spices and a cream soup base. The homemade sauce as done by sautéing garlic and onion, adding spices, and two cans of crushed tomatoes. The resulting sauce was used for pasta and pizza. Leftover meatloaf/stuffed pepper filling was re-purposed in a dinner omelet. 

Good news here is that NH restaurants re-opened for outdoor dining only this week with socially distanced tables of from 2 to 6 people, depending on the restaurant and outdoor space. Servers are masked; customers are not unless entering the restaurant to use the facilities. We're looking forward to outside dining as warmer weather is finally here and looks like it's staying around.

Aside from dinner, I've also been doing some baking, recently termed stress-baking and thankfully some neighbors have been willing recipients of my banana bread and soda bread. I've also made fettuccine using a pasta maker my late mother gifted to me over 30 years ago and which I recently started using — it was long overdue, details in a future post. Thankfully, flour has become more available in several local supermarkets.

How about you — cooking and baking at home more often these days?