Mid-September Menu + Spicy Coconut Noodles

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

dinners written out on a white board

*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:

Saturday, 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.

pepperoni pizza on a cutting board

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.

cookies on a cooling rack

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

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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 23 limes
  • 1 C chopped fresh herbs (I used cilantro, basil, and mint)
  • chopped peanuts, for garnish

Instructions

  1. In a medium bowl, combine the sliced chicken breast, gochujang sauce, and sambal olek, toss to coat, and let sit for 20-30 minutes.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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 August Menu + Grilled Vegetable Bolognese

Hiiiii! It’s been about a million minutes since I’ve posted but I’m excited to try something new here today: sharing last week’s menu from our house! Selfishly, I want these weekly menus here because I want to document the memories. IDK why but I remember most things through what I was cooking or eating at the time. So, here we are. Also, I’m including a pretty wonderful recipe for a grilled vegetable bolognese that only a monster wouldn’t love.

*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.

Early August dinners

What we made this week, with notes:

Saturday 7/30/22: Cassoulet on toast with a green salad. The cassoulet was frozen leftover from the winter, when I made a real-deal, legit cassoulet with homemade duck confit and all. Bucket list! The recipe came from Michael Ruhlman’s cookbook “From Scratch” and was completely delicious piled on some toasted, crusty bread. A squeeze of lemon on top and a salad on the side were just right to balance out the richness.

Sunday 7/31/22: Grilled Vegetable Bolognese with garlic bread and a green salad. The recipe is shared below! The sauce freezes perfectly so we were eating this leftover. High-fives to me for cleaning out my freezer last week, I guess!

Monday 8/1/22: Veggie Fried Rice. A Serving Tonight staple in this house and a great use for leftovers!

Tuesday 8/2/22: Grilled chicken wings and sauteed corn and leeks with fresh mozzarella. When I tell you we tossed the wings in the Thai curry sauce from Buffalo Wild Wings, it sounds weird that we paired them with anything involving fresh mozzarella. But, IDK… it worked! We threw some fresh jalapeno and lime juice in with the corn and leeks and lived happily ever after. If you’re in need of a good method for grilling wings, refer to this NYT recipe for Chicken Wings With Gochujang, Ginger and Garlic and use any sauce/seasoning you want. It’s foolproof!

Wednesday 8/3/22: Potato and Leek Top Frittata with goat cheese + marinated red peppers on toast. Leek tops! Eat them. The cookbook “To the Last Bite” by Alexis deBoschnek will show you how; this frittata recipe and the marinated red pepper recipe came from there and were super good.

Thursday 8/4/22: Chopped Thai Salad. We used this recipe from Pinch of Yum and threw in some savoy cabbage and chicken thighs we grilled on Tuesday night while the grill was already fired up for the wings. HUGE fan of this salad.

Friday 8/5/22: Tuna steaks with miso noodle salad. When your friend texts to offer fresh-caught tuna, you say yes. We seared the tuna steaks and dunked each bite in a fiery homemade wasabi-yaki sauce. I also added a miso noodle salad on the side that I think I ruined by adding some of that savoy cabbage from Thursday. What should have been a lovely, creamy noodle dish ended up a sad, watery salad. Boooo. But yay for tuna:

raw tuna steaks being seared in a hot skillet

Just for fun, here’s the original menu I wrote out at the start of the week. Didn’t stick to it 100% but still a delicious week. (The food marked for the Inn is what I cook for the staff at my friend’s beautiful Corolla Village Inn❤️)

On to that bolognese recipe…

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Grilled Vegetable Bolognese

two bowls of grilled vegetable bolognese with salad and bread

This grilled vegetable bolognese is my attempt at recreating an amazing charred vegetable bolognese my mom and I ate at chef Ashley Christianson’s Raleigh, NC restaurant, Death & Taxes. It’s smoky, loaded with summery veg flavor, and somehow hearty and light at the same time — a fabulous pasta dish for hot summer nights.

  • Author: Megan
  • Prep Time: 20 minutes
  • Cook Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
  • Total Time: 2 hours 5 minutes
  • Yield: 6 servings 1x
  • Category: dinner
  • Diet: Vegetarian

Ingredients

Scale
  • 3 carrots, sliced in thirds lengthwise
  • 1 eggplant, sliced in 1/4″ thick slices lengthwise
  • 2 red bell peppers, stemmed, cored and sliced into two or three large, flat peices
  • 1 large sweet onion, sliced into 1/4” thick rings
  • 24 green onions
  • 1/2 a head of cauliflower, cut into 2 or 3 steaks
  • 3 ribs of celery
  • 1 pint of cherry tomatoes or any tomatoes you have
  • olive oil
  • kosher salt
  • pepper
  • crushed red pepper
  • roasted garlic puree or 2-3 cloves of minced garlic
  • 1/3 C chopped sundried tomatoes
  • 1/4 C tomato paste
  • 1/2 C white wine
  • 1 lb long pasta (I used bucatini)
  • reserved pasta water
  • grated parmesan
  • crispy fried onions for serving (store-bought French’s brand is perfect)

Instructions

  1. Preheat a grill to medium-high.
  2. Drizzle all of the vegetables with olive oil and season on all sides with salt and pepper. Grill the veggies, turning them occasionally, until nicely charred. (For the cherry tomatoes, I used a perforated grill pan. You can put them on skewers if that’s easier, or just grill larger whole tomatoes.
  3. Allow veggies to cool slightly, then roughly chop them all.
  4. Add both kinds of onions, the carrots, and the celery to the bowl of a food processor and pulse until a coarse paste forms.
  5. Heat 2 TBS of olive oil in a large nonstick skillet or whatever pot/pan you like over medium heat, add the onion/carrot/celery mixture, a large pinch of salt, and cook, stirring occasionally for 30-45 minutes or until nicely browned.
  6. Pulse the remaining chopped vegetables in  the food processor and add them to the pan with the onion/carrot/celery mixture. Cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the water has evaporated.
  7. Add a tablespoon or two of roasted garlic puree or 2-3 cloves of minced garlic, sundried tomatoes, and cook for another minute.
  8. Add the tomato paste and cook 3-5 minutes more. Season with another big pinch of salt and however much crushed red pepper you like.
  9. Add the white wine, turn the heat to low and allow the mixture to cook for another 30 minutes or so, adding water as needed to prevent burning/sticking. I used about 3/4-1 C of water total. Also, taste as you go and add salt as needed. The vegetables can take a lot of salt, especially as you add water to them. Just remember you’ll be adding salted pasta water and salty cheese later.
  10. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil and season it with salt. Add the pasta and cook until just shy of al dente.
  11. Using tongs, transfer the pasta to the pan with the vegetable mixture and toss to coat, adding enough pasta water to allow everything to move around easily. Let the pasta and sauce cook together for another minute or two, then turn off the heat, grate in some parmesan, and toss. Serve with extra grated parmesan and crispy onions on top.

Notes

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

Keywords: grilled vegetables, vegetable bolognese, summer pasta, how to use up vegetables, grilled vegetable pasta, what to do with grilled vegetables

Szechuan Miso Noodles with Crispy Shallots

It’s miso noodle time again, friends. If you’ve been with me on this blog for some time, you may have already come across my miso noodle obsession, in the form of these garlicky, life-changing, miso butter noodles. It’s one of the most popular recipes I’ve ever written, which makes me believe the world must need more miso noodle recipes. Well, this one delivers – big time. Richness? Check. Acidity? Check. Heat? CHECK. A crispy, fried garnish? CHECK!!

Szechuan miso noodles in pan
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Caramelized Onion and Bacon Mac and Cheese

Every once in a while a meal is created that you just want to curl up in bed and snuggle with. This is that meal. Macaroni and cheese already falls squarely in the comfort food category but when you add sweet caramelized onions and salty, smoky bacon to it… It’s a real situation. You might be thinking, “Nah, that sounds too rich for me,” to which I would say, “Get real. It definitely is not.”

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Homemade Sweet Corn and Jalapeno Ravioli

Ok, are you all familiar with the amazingness that is homemade pasta? It’s in its own category of greatness, especially when you stuff it with ricotta, goat cheese, basil, and little pops of fresh sweet corn and spicy jalapeno. Come on – sweet, spicy, herby, and creamy? These are words I live my life by. And honestly, the texture of homemade pasta is just unbeatable. Once you try it, you’ll never look back. (Except when you feel lazy and just want a bowl of buttery spaghetti out of a box. I feel you.)

Homemade Corn and Jalapeno Ravioli
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Pasta with Fresh Tomato Butter Sauce

In honor of this very delicious tomato season, here is another fresh tomato recipe! This one comes in the form of a light, buttery sauce coating thin spaghetti, garnished with bunches and bunches of fresh basil, and a little grated Parm (if that’s your style). Ya’ll. It’s so good and perfect and easy. I made it for lunch the other day and I’m not usually someone who drags out a pan and lights up the stove for lunch. But these fresh, juicy tomatoes were calling my name.

chopped tomatoes in a bowl
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Summer Squash Spaghetti

Farmer’s Markets are back ☀️ Oh man, is it nice to have fresh, local vegetables again! This Summer Squash Spaghetti is the bright, fork-twirling, crispy-mushroom-topped stuff we need to officially say buh-bye to winter. It’s light and lemony, with lots of bite from crushed red pepper and good yum factor from creamy goat cheese.

Summer Squash Spaghetti with crispy mushrooms in a skillet
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Coconut Curry Ramen

I’m back with some creamy, spicy noods! We’re still comfort-fooding a little bit over here after saying goodbye to our sweet dog, Caesar, and omg does this Coconut Curry Ramen hit me right in the food feelz. It’s basically the sweet and spicy coconut curry sauce of your Thai takeout food dreams, made into a broth for ramen noodles, topped off with crispy mushrooms and an oozy, soft-boiled egg. Top to bottom, this recipe takes less than 30 minutes; most of your time is spent browning the mushrooms, which you could even skip if you’re in “don’t care, need food now” mode.

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