Baked Miso Chicken & Coconut Rice
Plus, 5 Dinners in Real Life
Hi!
Life lately has been a little bit of this and little bit of that…
Enjoying the lush spring beauty of California before the hot, dry summer hits….
Gathering for Passover dinner in a friend’s backyard…
Spending several hours on a Saturday trying to get a sock out of the vacuum….
A relaxing overnight getaway near Santa Barbara…
The push and pull of reading the news and avoiding the news…
Thoroughly enjoying season three of White Lotus and currently binging Your Friends & Neighbors …
Doing taxes, which are never that hard but bring up so much anxiety about money…
Driving to Arizona for a low-key spring break…
After our visit to Arizona, where the sun was blazing every day, my brain clicked into summer mode. I’m already craving watermelon and stone fruits, cold crisp salads and light, easy dinners. My mind is wandering ahead to summer break and how the kids and I will fill our days. I’m thinking about how I can reclaim some time for writing and recipe development and how I will balance my summer goals with rest and relaxation.
But, we’re not quite there yet.
We still have 7 weeks of school and the busy schedule that comes with the end of the school year. I’m scrambling to buy new clothes for the kids, since both have outgrown their shorts and swimsuits from last year, and I’m finding that shopping with older kids is much more time consuming than grabbing clothes at Target for little kids. We’re trying to get our yard in order after neglecting it all winter, finalizing plans for our summer trip to Canada and tackling those random home chores that pile up. Including a washing machine that suddenly isn’t working. Ugh. We’re busy! And I’m sure you are too.
This past week, I made baked miso chicken and coconut rice for dinner. Casserole is a perfect meal for busy times, but I’ve never really gotten into the habit of making them regularly. As a parent I’ve always been leery of one-pan dinners - if you also have kids who don’t like their food “mixed together” you know what I mean.
This recipe for baked chicken with coconut rice, which kinda-sorta falls into the casserole category, works for my family because it’s easy to separate the chicken from the rice and eat them separately on your plate (which one of my kids does). Also, there isn’t a vegetable mixed in (I usually serve broccoli on the side). The flavors of miso and coconut milk are a lot different than you’ll find in a traditional casserole and the texture isn’t heavy and thick. The Jasmine rice is fluffy in some bites and creamy in others, the chicken thighs are savory and tender and a generous topping of green onion adds color and easy flavor.
This Week’s Recipe: Baked Miso Chicken & Coconut Rice Casserole
This recipe is from the collection of bonus recipes that I previously only sent to paid subscribers. Going forward, bonus recipes are available to everyone for 7 days after this newsletter is published, then the recipe goes behind a paywall for paid subscribers.
For the next 7 days, find the recipe for baked miso chicken & coconut rice → HERE
If you’d like to upgrade your membership for full access to all bonus recipes, you can do so for just $35/year.
Dinner in Real Life
I’m always curious about what other families are eating, aren’t you? I hope that my week of real life dinners will provide helpful recipes & cooking ideas for your family. Here’s what we’ve been eating lately:
MONDAY: Trader Joe’s Pad Thai and Pot Stickers with rice
Yep. It was a whole dinner made from the freezer section at Trader Joe’s and while it wasn’t great, it wasn’t terrible either and it fed everyone quickly for a fraction of the cost of take-out. Sorin and I had just spent a relaxing weekend near Santa Barbara, which was lovely in every way, except it meant that the usual chores didn’t get done over the weekend. I came home from work on Monday to a very disheveled house with many loads of dirty laundry and an empty refrigerator. At 5pm I dropped the kids off at swim practice and ran to Trader Joe’s for groceries, including what I bought for this meal.
TUESDAY: Lentil soup with naan
I love a quick lentil soup in the Instant Pot. I often wing it, and don’t follow a specific recipe. Sometimes I make this version with Italian sausage (you can skip the sausage in the recipe and instead flavor the soup it with a spice blend like Italian herbs or garam masala). I always serve warm bread with soup to make the meal more kid-friendly. We also like Trader Joe’s frozen samosas with lentil soup.
WEDNESDAY: Baked Miso Chicken with Coconut Rice
See the Recipe of the Week above! For the next 7 days, find the recipe for baked miso chicken & coconut rice → HERE (it’s always available to paid subscribers).
THURSDAY: Pan Seared Tilapia over Pappardelle
Defrosted, frozen tilapia has become a mid-week staple in my meal rotation lately. It’s less expensive than salmon and cooks really quickly in a hot skillet with olive and butter. For this meal, I added capers to the skillet and served the fish over pappardelle pasta with butter. We had salad on the side.
FRIDAY: Polenta with Roasted Zucchini and Mushrooms
Another really easy dinner, this time made from sliced polenta (warmed in a skillet with olive oil) and served with roasted vegetables. I often add sausage to the meal; sliced polenta also pairs well with pork loin or pork chops.
Cookbooks
This bright and cheerful cookbook is filled with mouth-watering recipes. Everything looks really, really good! The cover claims these are “everyday” recipes and some are, but many require more time and effort then is realistic on a weeknight. My kids want to make the Dutch Baby pancake with berries and cream and I have my eye on the layered cabbage roll casserole and one-pot baked risotto with blistered tomatoes and burrata.
The recipes are mostly vegetarian, but in a hearty comfort-food sort of way, with an emphasis on flavor. There are lots of recipes featuring swirled yogurt with garlic, crispy breadcrumbs and simple flavor combinations that sound really, really good (like caramelized honey balsamic roasted cauliflower).
That’s it for this week! Keep your eye out for a bonus newsletter coming soon with a recipe for Quick & Crunchy Pan-Fried Tilapia. I’m also hoping to send out a short post about what I’ve been reading lately. I’ve just started Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson. What have you been reading this spring?
xo
Jenny