What's Cooking: Goat Coconut Curry, Roasted Tofu & Eggplant, Simple Roast Chicken, Fettuccine Carbonara with Porgy & Shrimp

Grant was out of town the week before last, so I got by on all the leftovers from the weekend before he left. It should be extremely obvious to me, but there’s a lot more food when he’s not eating it, too! ;-)

So then he got back last Friday and I was ready to cook a bunch more for the next week.

Goat Coconut Curry with Squash, Purple Sweet Potatoes, Tomatoes & Peppers

I used up some of the last packs of the goat stew meat/kebab pieces currently in stock for this simple yellow curry with coconut milk.

I cut the stew meat into even smaller pieces and started by browning in a cast iron skillet. Then I sautéed onions, garlic and ginger, deglazing with coconut aminos and rice vinegar to get the browned bits off the pan. Then I mixed in the yellow curry paste before adding in broth (a batch of goat bone broth from my freezer) and coconut milk.

For the veggies, I used a few purple sweet potatoes, zucchini and yellow summer squash, yellow and red slicer tomatoes I had frozen and some Lesya and bullhorn sweet peppers. With my favorite black rice from Two Brooks Farm, this was a really flavorful, veggie loaded meal.

Crispy Tofu, Roasted Eggplant & Sesame Peanut Sauce

I also had a block of plain Tien Dat tofu and some Japanese eggplant to use up, so before I got the goat curry going, I tore up tofu, sprinkled with sea salt and cornstarch and sautéed until crispy in a cast iron skillet.

Meanwhile I think eggplant tastes better and soaks up way less oil when roasted versus sautéed on the stove.

The sauce was a little peanut butter, as well as tahini and toasted sesame oil, ginger, garlic and some sriracha style hot sauce made by Resurrection Gardens.

I was originally planning this more for meal prep/lunches, but we ended up having it with the goat curry the first night and the mix of the creamy curry with the  rice and the peanut sauce was really good together! So I mostly ate them together for the rest of the week, too.

Roast Chicken, Potatoes, Squash & Shishitos

There is just something about a meal based around roast chicken! We had a bunch of hummus on hand, so I was originally planned to do some kind of chicken shawarma, but then I ended up just seasoning the chicken pretty basically with garlic and onion powders, paprika, coriander, mustard seed and sea salt.

I used mayo as the oil to get the spices to stick and that always helps with a lovely browning effect because of the egg in mayo. I cooked it at 425 degrees initially and flipped it twice. I eventually turned it down to 375 degrees and cooked it for a little over an hour total.

For the sides, we did roasted potatoes, delicata squash and blistered shishitos, plus a little homemade beet and cabbage kraut.

Fettuccine Carbonara with Porgy, Shrimp, Shiitakes and Sweet Corn

If I have a super power, it might be my ability to throw together a really quality meal even when I’m not feeling like it and short on time.

On Saturday evening, I was frustrated with a set back with the house construction timeline and had gotten a bunch of red ant bites all over my arms when collecting eggs from under the chicken coop and was generally just feeling in a funk.

By the time I got back inside it was 7:15 pm and while I had defrosted shrimp and fish for dinner, I wasn’t feeling like cooking. But we live far from good restaurants and didn’t have a lot of other options or leftovers lined up, so after thinking about eating granola for dinner, I powered through and by 8 pm we were eating this absolutely delicious meal!

I started by sautéed sliced shiitake mushrooms in butter. Then I added in gumbo size shrimp, seasoned with ALL CAPS Smokey Shiitake & Black Garlic seasoning. I finished that with a little more butter and two ears of corn cut off the cob.

To go with that, I finally tried Il Supremo’s hand-cut fettuccine for the first time (which I think of more as pappardelle since they’re very wide noodles). I did just about 8 ounces of it, or half a package, and made a quick carbonara with three egg yolks and a third of a cup or so of parmesan cheese.

And I also seared some of the new Porgy Filets from Anna Marie Seafood in Guidry’s Pecan Oil (goes so well with fish and can be cooked at a much higher heat than butter!), again simply seasoned with the ALL CAPS seasoning. And I had some chipotle broccoli pickles on the side for a little salty, funky punch and some good probiotics.

I served it all separately because Grant isn’t as much of a pasta fan as I am. And it was 100 times better than resorting to cereal for dinner!