Meal Inspiration // February 14-20

Pink Pancakes, Change-Your-Life Chicken, Mediterranean Feast, and Chai Masala Cookies!

Feb 14, 2022

Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s a new week! We’ve got some yummy options this week. Don’t be afraid to try the pink pancakes 😉 but top priority this week is that you make those chai chocolate chip cookies. Enjoy!

Breakfast - Pink Pancakes
Lunch - Change-Your-Life Chicken
Dinner - Mediterranean Feast: Lemon Pepper Rice, Rosemary Garlic White Beans, Kefta with Vegetables
Treat - Chai Masala Cookies
Exercise - Bird-Watching Hike
Story Prompt - Winter Tall Tales

Breakfast

Pink Pancakes

Pink pancakes are a fun Valentine’s Day tradition, but if you’re a little wary of food coloring, there’s an easy (and super nutritious) alternative!

Simply peel and cut up a beet. Then put it in the blender or food processor with milk or whatever liquid you use for your favorite pancake mix. (Our family loves Kodiak Cakes.) Then make your pancakes the way you normally would! A little extra vanilla and cinammon—and, of course, chocolate chips—will help mask any beet flavor. But you might be pleasantly surprised 😎

Lunch

Change-Your-Life Chicken

If you’re trying to get inexpensive meat, chicken thighs are your pal. A big hesitation people have with cooking chicken thighs is the amount of fat on them…but in this recipe adapted from The Lazy Genius, we’re going to use that to our advantage.

Preheat oven to 500 F.
Cut up whatever vegetables you want. (Make it colorful! 🌈) Keep in mind that carrots take a bit longer to cook, so you might want to slice them more thinly.
Season with more salt and spices than you’ll think you need and drizzle with olive oil. You can either mix all the veggies together or keep them separate so you can try different seasonings depending on the vegetables.
Optional: mix together some flour, salt, pepper, and whatever seasonings you want on a paper plate. Coat your chicken thighs with the flour mixture for a super yum crispy coating.
Place the chicken thighs on top of the veggies. Adding some lemon helps too.
Bake for about 50 minutes, stirring sometimes. Add some olive oil to the chicken thighs if they need some help. You don’t want the vegetables to burn, but don’t worry about the chicken thighs; it takes a lot to get thighs to dry out 😅

Dinner

Mediterranean Feast

If you want to really wow your family, prepare all these ingredients (maybe with some leftover veggies from the sheet pan recipe above) and offer them as a Mediterranean-inspired buffet. Maybe offer some balsamic glaze (like Nonna Pia’s) on the side.

Lemon Pepper Rice

This is a copycat recipe from Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe (a restaurant our family really likes.) Basically, all you do is make basmati rice and mix in butter, salt, freshly ground pepper, lemon juice (and zest), and parsley…all to the taste you prefer. It’s delicious.

Rosemary Garlic White Beans

This is a copycat recipe from Zoe’s Kitchen (another great restaurant!) These beans are so good and you can serve them in a little bowl as soup or pair them with the lemon pepper rice above!

In a pot, sauté a lot of sliced or chopped garlic with a little drizzle of olive oil. Don’t let them burn.
Stir in some chopped fresh rosemary and some dried oregano.
Pour in drained cans of Great Northern beans (or Cannelini beans; they’re very similar!)
Mix in some chicken broth, salt, and pepper.
Cook on low for 15-20 minutes or however long you like.

Kefta (with Vegetables)

Kefta might look like it’s just hot dog-shaped hamburgers, but the way the spices and herbs are mixed in…mmm…it’s special. Recipe adapted from NYT Cooking. And since we like adding vegetables whenever possible, this might be a good time to sauté some veggies in the rendered fat.

In a bowl, combine chopped parsley, cilantro, and mint (or just what you have) as well as grated yellow onion, paprika, cumin, salt, pepper, and a pinch of cayenne. (You could experiment with these flavors or use a blend like this one.)
Mix in ground beef or ground lamb and massage the spices and herbs into it.
Take about 1/2 tsp of the mixture and cook it in a pan or the microwave to try out the seasonings. Add more if needed.
Shape the meat into logs and refrigerate until you’re ready to cook. If you will be using an actual grill, slide wooden skewers into the logs.
If you’re cooking inside, open some windows because there’s probably going to be smoke. If not, fire up your grill.
Grill the kefta on all sides. You can add olive oil to help it brown and sizzle.
If you’re adding vegetables—choose ones that don’t take a long time to cook so you can still serve your kefta hot—you can cook them with the kefta or add them in for a quick softening and sauté at the end.
Serve them up and enjoy! This might be one of your new favorite things to do with ground beef!

Treat

Chai Masala Cookies

This recipe from A Cozy Kitchen is brilliant. Black pepper in cookies is something you never thought you needed. And here’s a cooking hack: always make a huge batch of cookie dough, but only cook what you need for that night. Freeze the rest of dough (more instructions below) so you can always have cookies from scratch ready for guests…or just a little treat 😉

Melt 1 c (2 sticks) butter and let cool. Yeah, that’s a lot of butter, but we are making a lot of cookies.
Whisk together 3 1/3 c flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 1/2 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp ginger, 1 tsp cinnamon, and about 1/2 tsp each of cardamom, cloves, allspice, ground black pepper, and salt. (If you can get your hands on a “chai masala” blend, even better. One Good Knife nails it on this 🙌)
In a separate bowl, mix together your melted butter with 1 1/2 c brown sugar, 1/2 c granulated sugar, 2 large eggs, and 2 tsp vanilla extract.
Combine wet and dry ingredients.
Stir in 12 oz dark chocolate chunks. (The cookies are good on their own; you don’t have to use that full amount.)
Transfer bowl of dough to fridge for an hour (or up to two days.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
To get some cookies ready for later, scoop out balls of dough onto a cookie sheet or large plate and put it in the freezer. After about 20 minutes, scrape them off into a freezer bag and keep in the freezer. You. Are. Welcome.
For the cookies you want right now, bake them for 7 or 8 minutes, till they’re medium brown. Sprinkle with a pinch of kosher salt and proudly serve ‘em up! 😋
Note: The glorious thing about frozen cookie dough balls is you can take out even just one at a time and bake it in the toaster oven! Or you can cook a dozen if you’re having a party! Just add a couple minutes to your baking time since they’re starting at frozen.
It’s pretty satisfying to know delicious cookies are in the freezer, only a short bake away…

Exercise

Depending on where you live, mid-February is a great time to look for birds. (February 18-21 is the Great Backyard Bird Count; more on that in tomorrow’s newsletter.) This week, can you find time to schedule a long walk or hike and look for some birds? You can bring hot chocolate in a thermos if you want to add an extra sense to this memory you’re making.

P.S. If you need help finding hikes in your area, AllTrails is helpful (and free.)

Story Prompt

As winter begins to end, share a tall tale about a favorite winter memory that never actually happened. Fictional family stories are really fun and a chance where everyone gets to lie a little bit 😉 (“Remember that time we made a snowman bigger than our house?” “Yeah, and we built a toboggan slide from the roof! The kids in the neighborhood loved it.”)

Grocery List

Hopefully you get to try some of these recipes! As always, send us pictures of the meals you make!

Warmly,

Hope from Family Scripts