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Mid-September Menu + Spicy Coconut Noodles

Another tasty week in the books. Let’s discuss! (Also, someone got new markers!! Me.)

*This post contains affiliate links to some of my favorite cookbooks. If you click a link and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission.

mid-September dinners

What we made last week, with notes:

Sunday, 9/10/22: Pizza and salad! I mentioned last week I’m on a quest for a new pizza dough and, to that end, I tried the NYT Cooking highly-rated pizza dough recipe this week. It was good — my personal favorite for homemade dough so far. What I’m really looking for in homemade dough is for it to emerge from the oven with big, pillowy bubbles. This one had the beginning of one bubble. So, ya know… it’s something. I’m still searching and Joey still prefers store-bought Publix dough.

Sunday 9/11/22: Spicy Coconut Noodles. I started out with Melissa Clark’s recipe for Gingery Coconut Noodles with Shrimp and Greens from her new cookbook “Dinner In One”, and ended up with the Spicy Coconut Noodles recipe shared below, which uses chicken breasts, a hot little gochujang/sambal olek marinade, a bunch of chopped green beans, and subs in pasta for rice noodles. We looooved this and I have to think it’s due to that mound of spaghetti being cooked in a spicy coconut milk bath. Fab!

Monday 9/12/22: Kimchi Fried Rice. A hit! And this recipe also came from that same Melissa Clark book. I made this for the crew at my friend’s inn and my only regret was not being able to include the fluffy scrambled egg that Joey and I got to enjoy with it (scrambled eggs + make-ahead meals for large groups just don’t mix in my mind).

Tuesday 9/13/22: Pizza again! Nope, we did not follow the plan. But, Joey and I did do something this day that’s been 10 years in the making: we took our boat over to our local Indian spot, Masala Bay, for lunch and ate all the things. Ah-mazing.

dishes of Indian food laid out on a table

Wednesday 8/13/22: leftover Indian food!

Thursday 8/14/22: Dinner at mom and dad’s. My mom made paella with shrimp, scallops, mussels, and chorizo and WHY do I not ever make paella?? It was so good.

Friday 8/15/22: Trader Joe’s Cacio e Pepe Ravioli with Cajun Alfredo Sauce. We’d planned on eating leftovers but had this instead and it tasted like canned spaghettios, which to me, is a good thing.

This week’s baking efforts: Brown Butter Brown Sugar Cookies. I make these preeeetttty often — they’re the just-right combo of nutty brown butter and molassas-y brown sugar and the texture is perfectly crinkly-soft. The recipe is from America’s Test Kitchen’s “New Essentials Cookbook”, although I think they’re just called Brown Sugar Cookies in there. Why they don’t call out the brown-butteriness in the title, I’ll never know.

Now on to this week’s recipe. It’s a goody❤️

Mid-September Menu + Spicy Coconut Noodles

noodles with lots of herbs and spinach in a skillet with tongs

This recipe is a twist on the Gingery Coconut Noodles from Melissa Clark’s cookbook “Dinner In One”, using spaghetti noodles, chicken breasts, a spicy marinade, and green beans.

Author: Megan
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour
Yield: 4 servings 1x
Category: dinner

Ingredients

Scale

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced into thin pieces, about 1” long
1/3 C gochujang sauce
2 TBS sambal olek
3 TBS coconut oil
6 scallions, thinly sliced (keep the white and green parts separated)
2 jalapenos, thinly sliced (divided)
1/2 lb green beans, chopped into 1/3“-long pieces
4 cloves of garlic, grated on a microplane
1” of fresh ginger, grated on a microplane
1 can coconut milk
2 C chicken stock
1/4 lb spaghetti
2 TBS fish sauce
1 5 oz container of spinach, roughly chopped
juice of 2–3 limes
1 C chopped fresh herbs (I used cilantro, basil, and mint)
chopped peanuts, for garnish

Instructions

In a medium bowl, combine the sliced chicken breast, gochujang sauce, and sambal olek, toss to coat, and let sit for 20-30 minutes.
In a skillet over medium-high heat, heat the coconut oil, then add the marinated chicken breast. Cook, stirring once or twice until the chicken is seared on the outside – about 7 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate and set aside. Do not wipe out the pan.
Melt the remaining TBS of coconut oil in the same skillet, then add the scallion whites, half the jalapeno, and the green beans. Cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and the beans turn bright green – 3 to 4 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger and cook, stirring, for 1 more minute.
Increase heat to high and dd the coconut and chicken stock to the pan, stirring to combine. Once the mixture comes to a boil, add the spaghetti. Cook, stirring occasionally until pasta is al dente – about 9 minutes. Add more stock if the mixture gets too dry.
Stir in the fish sauce, the reserved cooked chicken, and the spinach, and cook until the spinach is just wilted. Taste and season with as much of the lime juice as you like, and/or add more fish sauce or a pinch of salt if it needs it.
Sprinkle remaining sliced jalapenos, chopped herbs, and peanuts over top and serve.

Notes

*The cooking times and nutritional info noted in this recipe are approximate.

Keywords: easy chicken breast recipe, coconut milk noodles, spicy noodle recipe

Early September Menus

This week’s post is a twofer with no real recipe b/c I’m a bit behind schedule — a bit behind all of life, actually but that’s ok. I couldn’t just skip a post because there’s been so much good food the past two weeks and I need a record of it!

*This post contains affiliate links to some of my favorite cookbooks. If you click a link and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission.

last days of August, first days of September dinners

What we made last week, with notes:

Saturday 8/27/22: Kimchi and bacon grilled cheese with fries. What else do you need on a Saturday night? This was Pinch of Yum‘s recipe, except I added spinach to the bacon/kimchi mixture. We eat this sandwich on the reg — it’s pretty much perfect.

Sunday 8/28/22: Pasta e fagioli with garlic bread. Ok, this I ate all week long with many, many Ritz crackers and it was so satisfying. The recipe came from a book I’ve mentioned before, my all-time fave: “Italian American: Red Sauce Classics and New Essentials: A Cookbook” by Angie Rito and Scott Tacinelli. If you have a mouth and like to cook even a little bit, buy this book. Just LOOK at the tiny pasta and the greens and the broth and the Parm:

Pasta e Fagioli in bowls with bread on the side

Monday 8/29/22: Chicken and squash mafe curry. I thoroughly regret not snapping a picture of this because it was a real highlight of the week. I used a lamb and sweet potato curry recipe from the latest Food & Wine magazine — the recipe is not on their website for me to link to here but it has both peanut butter and coconut milk (like, wow), and a super flavorful spice blend. I swapped in chicken thighs and butternut squash for the lamb and sweet potatoes and I gotta make this again and write it all down, it’s a definite keeper.

Tuesday 8/30/22: Tacos. TACO TUESDAY mmkay

Wednesday 8/31/22: Merguez meatballs with roasted squash and salad. This recipe kinda sorta came from a book called “For The Table” by Anna Stockwell except I used merguez sausages I got at the state farmer’s market instead of ground lamb and turned the whole thing into a flatbread/wrap situation with lots of pickled onions and cucumber and feta and a pistachio gremolata. I thanked myself for those bright ideas.

Merguez Meatballs and Roasted SquashMerguez Meatballs and Roasted Squash

Thursday 9/1/22: Summer squash and onion lasagna and salad. I must must must come back to this one someday and write out the whole recipe. I basically combined the caramelized squash and onions from Vivian Howard’s book Deep Run Roots with the lasagna verde from Italian American, which includes an incredible, bright green pistachio pesto and a creamy bechamel. I mean, come on.

Summer Squash and Onion Lasagna on two plates

Friday 9/2/22: Collard green pizza and salad. I had half a big bag of collard greens left after Sunday’s pasta e fagioli and they sure did end up sauteed and on my pizza Friday night. New thing: I’m on a quest for the best pizza dough recipe. I’m over my go-to pizza dough at the moment, although I haven’t found one I like better yet. This one did not quite do it for me, but even bad pizza is good pizza:

Pizza on parchment paper with marinara sauce

And that’s the end of that week! On to this week, where I took far fewer pictures:

Early September dinners

What we made this week, with notes:

Saturday 9/3/22: Rigatoni with sausage, basil, and mustard cream sauce and salad. I get big end-of-summer-almost-fall vibes from this meal. It’s a crossover dinner! The recipe is from Food & Wine, and the whole thing only takes up the space of one paragraph. Read: it’s easy.

Sunday 9/4/22: Moroccan roast with chickpeas and couscous with lemony broccolini. 10 out of 10 would make again, just for the smell. It’s pot roast but with harissa, cumin, and cinnamon and my house smelled like heaven for at least 4 hours. This recipe was perfect and came from Colu Henry’s book, “Colu Cooks“. The picture doesn’t do it justice but it makes me happy to remember this meal.

Moroccan Roast with Chickpeas and Couscous with Broccolini

Monday 9/5/22: Grilled wings; grilled moo cheese, pork tenderloin and broccoli rabe subs, roasted potatoes, and brownies. It was Labor Day! And we had friends over and had a ball. Is it a good idea to make hot, time-consuming sandwiches for a crowd? No, but these pork and broccoli rabe subs are really, really good. They’re from America’s Test Kitchen’s “New Essentials Cookbook“.

Tuesday 9/6/22: leftovers!

Wednesday 9/7/22: leftovers again! Joey wasn’t home so I didn’t cook.

Thursday 9/8/22: Lentil soup in bread bowls. If you ever need a self-esteem boost, make these bread bowls from Molly Yeh. If you follow the recipe exactly, you will end up with restaurant-quality bread bowls and feel like a total superstar. I sort of regret not making the lentil soup she serves in them but I had to try the recipe from “To the Last Bite” by Alexis deBoschnek. Alexis warns it will seem weird that the bacon in the soup is not crisped, it just simmers/cooks along with everything else in the stock, then you thinly slice it at the end and add it back to the soup and the pieces end up as velvety little flavor bombs. I agree it did taste wonderful and yes, it was weird.

Lentil Soup in Bread Bowls on a countertop

And with that, we’re done! Looking forward to more great food and trying out some new stuff next week.

End of August Menu + Macadamia Rum Bars

Sending silent thanks to the universe that it’s almost September and we’re quickly approaching the absolute best time of year on the OBX. Finally! But, while it’s still August, let’s recap this week’s dinners:

*This post contains affiliate links to some of my favorite cookbooks. If you click a link and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission.

end of august dinners

What we made this week, with notes:

Saturday 8/20/22: Brothy fregola, broccoli rabe, and prosciutto with grilled cheese. Hot soup in August is totally fine by me and this one was fun. At first, my taste buds were like, “NO!” because the broth became pretty bitter, thanks to the broccoli rabe. But… I also could not stop eating it. I think the salty prosciutto, the parmesan, the tiny pasta, and the rich broth just made it all alright. I would not have liked it as much without the bitterness. It all works. This recipe came from Colu Henry’s book, “Colu Cooks“, from which everything I’ve cooked so far has been fab. Here’s a pic of this meal, which has me frustratedly sighing at how much better the picture would be had I put a couple of spoons in the dang bowls. Oh well.

bowls of soup and a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches

Sunday 8/21/22: Frozen pizza and salad!

Monday 8/22/22: Giant Dinner Salad. A Serving Tonight staple. This time I made it with kale, brown rice, roasted carrots and chickpeas, smoked almonds, golden raisins, feta, and chicken. So goooood.

Tuesday 8/23/22: Scallion feta dip; corn, zucchini, and shrimp salad; steak and tuna with romesco sauce; roasted potatoes; and pistachio cake. Our good friends Tara and Jamie (of the lovely blog and YouTube channel Savory Saver) were in town and came for dinner! I barely remember how good the food was because it was so nice to see them and catch up (and there was more than one bottle of wine involved), but I know it was indeed good. My favorite part was the romesco sauce, which I need to document with a full recipe at a later date, but is roasted red pepps, smoked almonds, sherry vinegar, honey, and olive oil all blended in a food processor. Can literally eat it by the spoonful, all by itself. We had it with a seared sirloin steak (was very nervous about this cut being tough but Tara has a sixth sense for when to flip a piece of meat and she nailed it).

Wednesday 8/24/22: Trader Joe’s sweet corn, burrata, and basil ravioli with fresh tomato butter sauce and salad. The menu board said miso harissa noodles for this night but it wasn’t in the cards. This ravioli was in our freezer and felt much easier. The sauce was pretty much this Fresh Tomato Butter Sauce recipe, which I should make more often than I do.

Thursday 8/25/22: Grilled wings and salad. Should we talk about why we eat wings so often? Sure. It’s because we messed up our CrowdCow order twice in a row and now have enough wings to feed a football stadium. It’s fine, we’re fine. For this, we once again used the Buffalo Wild Wings thai curry sauce. It’s addictive!

Friday 8/26/22: Steak al limon with roasted potatoes and creamed kale. Big steakhouse vibes over here! This steak was interesting — the marinade/sauce was lemon juice, sugar, chiles, and fish sauce and I’m glad we tried it but not sure I’d make it again. The creamed kale on the other hand… holy cow. I used the Greatest Creamed Greens recipe from Alison Roman’s book “Nothing Fancy“. I want more RIGHT NOW.

plates of steak, potatoes, and greens with a glass of red wine

I mean… I’m pretty proud of this week of food. High fives. For the recipe this time around, I’m sharing the baked good that’s been most successful with the guests at the inn I bake for each week: Macadamia Rum Bars. It’s a version of my mother-in-law’s recipe and I believe she got it from a cookbook, sorry I don’t know which one. But these bars are foolproof and so sweet and gooey and crunchy, and just a little boozy. Love!