Real Simple Four-Week Dinner Plan: A Summary

The four weeks, annotated:

Week 1

Day 1: Roasted tilapia, potatoes and lemons. Best way to make a cheap fish sophisticated.

Day 2: Penne with tomatoes, eggplant and mozzarella. Summer eggplant parmesan.

Day 3: Turkey burgers with creamy romaine slaw. Best turkey burgers we've ever had!

Day 4: Pork cutlets with spicy noodles. Weirdest combo that worked.

Day 5: Steak with roasted carrots and onions. My introduction to tarragon, and my second favorite recipe of the group.

Week 2

Day 1: Curry shrimp and snow peas. Most photogenic.

Day 2: Lamb meatballs with couscous and feta. Truly a fresh take on Greek meatballs.

Day 3: Red currant-glazed chicken with spinach. Great spinach preparation alternative to my standby of garlic, lemon and olive oil.

Day 4: Chorizo and potato tacos with black bean salsa. Hands-down favorite.

Day 5: Ravioli with Brussels sprouts and bacon. This recipe was just too random; I couldn't make it.

Week 3

Day 1: Chicken paprikash. "When Harry met Sally" chicken.

Day 2: Shrimp with white beans and toast. As we discovered the second time around, the toast is essential.

Day 3: Asian beef and mango salad. Asian taco salad!

Day 4: Mushroom and herb strata. Delicious, but does not lend itself to leftovers... friends?

Day 5: Balsamic-glazed pork with lentils. Not making this again.

Week 4

Day 1: Roasted pork chops with polenta. My introduction to polenta. Love!

Day 2: Salmon with potato salad. Now my go-to salmon recipe.

Day 3: Seared steak with cauliflower puree. A series of unfortunate events only led to a messy kitchen and the conclusion that I do not like green olives with steak.

Day 4: Sweet potato and Brie flat bread. California Pizza Kitchen, at my house.

Day 5: Cajun chicken with collard greens. Wherein I triple the seasonings by 3 times and find success.

So, more than six months after I started, my October 2010 Real Simple issue is wrinkled and torn up, I've become more adventurous in trying recipes based on how adaptable they are for weeknights even if I wouldn't normally select them otherwise and I'm working on making complementary sides, instead of using frozen vegetables. Although there were a few busts, I've made most of these recipes more than a few times. Definitely more success from this issue than most cookbooks!

Pork Cutlets with Spicy Noodles

Week 1, day 4.

Maybe this recipe doesn't really go together-- Italian-ish breaded pork cutlets with super spicy asian noodles-- but, what the heck. The pork cutlets with panko crumbs are almost like crunchy chow mein bits on top of the udon noodles, which have great flavor from being boiled in chicken stock. The recipe is so fast and simple I only have a couple of notes-- use a green jalapeno, de-seeded, to tone down the spice, and use sliced button mushrooms since they'll keep longer in the fridge.

Penne with Tomatoes, Eggplant and Mozzarella

Week 1, day 2. (Are we done yet? Almost.)

From here on out I am referring to this recipe as deconstructed eggplant parm. Not sure why I didn't pick up on this from the ingredients-- tomato, eggplant, mozzarella, pasta, olive oil, garlic-- but I didn't, and it was a total surprise when I took my first bite. Yum! Just a smidge lighter than classic eggplant parm; summertime eggplant parm, if you will? The mint leaves help add to the freshness.

Since I wasn't on board yet with the final form this would take, you could understand my confusion about what to do with the mozzarella cubes. Should they go in the hot pasta? Or should it cool a little so they could maintain their shape? The answer is the former, as the gooey mozzarella strings really connect this dish. One note, although my husband disagrees, if you've bought a block of mozzarella that is 0.6 pounds, instead of 0.5 pounds, don't just throw the extra in; it's too much cheese!

Red Currant-Glazed Chicken with Spinach

Week 2, day 3. (I'm nearing the end of this series... should have a wrap-up post in the next few weeks!)

Easy variation on roast chicken. I didn't blog about it the first go-around because I used a rimmed baking sheet, as directed, and cleaning up the baked-on redcurrant glaze was a nightmare. It's actually good that I didn't write about it then, because I've experimented a bit on this recipe after 2 more tries. Now I use a ceramic baking dish, covered in foil. I also use Bonne Maman redcurrant jelly, which was recommended separately in this issue of Real Simple; 1 jar will work for 2 of these recipes. Use a full teaspoon of the red pepper flakes if you'd like to taste the red pepper flavor. Instead of chicken pieces, I buy a whole roaster so I can save the rest for stock. I find that 10 ounces of spinach is woefully inadequate for 4 servings-- try 2. Next time I really need to remember that, and also that I need to buy a new basting brush, since my husband left ours outside on the grill for 3 weeks. Once discovered, that went straight in the garbage.

Sweet Potato and Brie Flat Bread

Week 4, day 4.

First I just have to say: I appreciate the sophistication of the word "flat bread," but I'm pretty sure California Pizza Kitchen would call this a pizza. And if you would have handed me a slice of this and told me that it came from there, I would have believed you.

Second I would add: this recipe is kind of embarrassingly easy, but it can be made even simpler with 2 important tools: a knife specially made for slicing soft cheese (with holes in the middle, so the cheese doesn't stick) and a mandolin for thinly slicing the sweet potato. Note to self: buy a mandolin.

Third thing? Some third-party endorsements: my veggie-skeptic husband asked for seconds, and when I reheated at work the next day, two randoms stopped me to say how good it smelled.

Fourth, since this was the fourth recipe of the fourth Real Simple week, I finally researched the question of whether "one shallot" was the whole thing, or just one section. Apparently, it's the whole thing-- about 3 tablespoons.

Salmon with Potato Salad

Week 4, day 2. (See here for the start of series)

Another week 4 recipe that I've made for the second time: Salmon with Potato Salad. (not to be confused with the many other recipes that come up on Real Simple when you google "real simple salmon watercress horseradish." seriously.)

This is actually really simple. [Groan here.] I think the key is to get really fresh, fleshy pink salmon, since the seasoning on the salmon itself is minimal. I am very partial to Coho salmon, myself, versus Atlantic salmon. Because I love horseradish (which, if you didn't know, is basically wasabi), I used Inglehoffer's Extra Hot horseradish sauce in the potato salad. I've also made the potato salad both ways: whole potatoes and sliced. The sliced new potatoes can get a little sludgy, but are a much better option if you want to shorten cooking time. Another help is to prep the salad ingredients before you start the salmon (there's time) so you can use only one cutting board.

Cajun Chicken with Collard Greens

Week 4, day 5.

Re-made the last Real Simple 20 days of entrees dish tonight. We enjoyed the cajun chicken with collard greens quite a bit the first time, although I neglected to remind myself of the following lessons I should have learned back in October:

DO substitute the word "dredge" for the word season. It takes about 3 times as much seasoning (Central Market cajun seasoning blend) to obtain an evenly-coated, spicy masterpiece.

DO NOT cut the red pepper into rings... then you run into the awkward situation of needing to use your knife on only part of your vegetables when you eat. Just go ahead and do a rough dice.

DO preheat your oven at the beginning if you start with the chicken and haven't done your prep first. The chicken and the vegetables take about an equal time, so the chicken will sit for a bit if you start with it. No big deal, just keep it warm in the oven at around 300 degrees.

DO NOT leave the collard greens on for 5-7 minutes. They don't take that long, and apparently, collard greens can burn! (They taste fine, actually, but cleaning the pan is a pain).

DO take a better photo of this... ugh.

and finally... DO NOT be afraid of collard greens and black-eyed peas... think kale and cannellini, with more oomph.

Roasted Pork Chops with Polenta

Week 4, day 1.

Polenta with gruyere = cheese grits = not scary!

I don't know why, I just always used to see polenta in tubes and assume that it was too difficult to make. Tubed polenta didn't seem like anything I wanted to eat, so I never made it. Actually, it's really simple and quick as long as you pay attention and keep stirring (think: bechamel). The cool thing is that you can serve it right away, and it has more the consistency of cream of wheat, and as it cools it starts to thicken and become like cornmeal mush. Except delicious.

I think chicken could easily be substituted for the pork in this roasted pork chops with polenta recipe, since the pork is really just a vehicle for the cheesy polenta and the sweet roasted tomatoes. Actually, I'd really substitute anything for the pork, because all I wanted to eat was the polenta and tomatoes. Or maybe just polenta :)

Balsamic-glazed Pork with Lentils

Week 3, day 5. Fail.

Have I mentioned that I have trouble with oven thermometers? In my presence they melt, stop or otherwise lose their ability to function. Obviously in awe.

This is really important with something like pork, because how else do you know if it's done? Not by the directions in this recipe... sorry, RS. Oven time for the balsamic-glazed pork with lentils inched closer to 20 minutes, as my oven thermometer and I hesitated over whether it was done. Stomach growling, I wanted so badly to salvage this meal by trying to stay optimistic. Husband: "Huh. I like all of these things individually. I just don't know that I wanted them together."

Boo.

Mushroom and Herb Strata

Week 3, day 4.

Back to my tattered and splattered October 2010 issue of Real Simple. We had this French bistro-style meal sometime in December, using cheddar cheese and the same country bread as the Shrimp with White Beans. It's a classic pairing of cheesy, eggy and crusty with crunchy, light and tangy. It may not have transported us to Paris-- but at least to the Paris hotel in Las Vegas :)

Not really a weeknight meal, though--- there's prep, and then baking for 50-60 minutes. This is where I confess that I don't always read recipes in advance, and when I got home one Friday night around 6:30 with this in mind, I was already pulling ingredients out of the fridge when I realized it was too daunting at the end of the week. We went out for pizza and had it the next night instead. But a better idea-- since this isn't the greatest leftover, save for dinner with vegetarian friends and time for a bottle of white wine.

Asian Beef and Mango Salad

Week 3, day 3...

Asian taco salad? Surprising, but good. Spicy beef, light dressing, crunchy peanuts, cool cucumbers, tangy cilantro and sweet mangos. It also meets my 3 main criteria for salads: knife unnecessary, lots of vegetables other than lettuce and fruit/nuts!

Shrimp with White Beans and Quinoa

Week 3, day 2, a.k.a., shrimp with white beans and toast.

The more I think about this recipe, the more I love that it is a total secret weapon. It literally took less time than a DiGiorno pizza to make this (and that is even with me peeling and slicing the garlic). The subtle flavor of butter, garlic and white wine (traditional shrimp pairings), together with the creamy white beans and peppery arugula, results in a sophisticated meal. Yay!

Update: we fell off the health wagon a bit in December, and I made this as originally designed, with toasted white bread. Husband (completely ignorant that we'd had this before) swore the bread made the dish. So there you go.

Chicken Paprikash

Week 3, Day 1 -- My husband starts the week by doing the Billy Crystal quote of "too much pepper in my paprikash" and requests a viewing of this movie while we eat the chicken paprikash.

First: I think this recipe needs to be a little more descriptive. "Bell pepper" should have a color-- it looks like the photo editor used green, but I used red because I wanted the sauce to be a uniform color. 2 1/2 lbs. thighs and drumsticks should be more specific, as in, 4 chicken legs (each leg being one thigh and one drumstick). And "large pot" should really be clear that you need something with reasonably high sides, but also a wide surface area-- something like this All-Clad saute pan, 6 qt. size, would be perfect.

Second: I don't think tomatoes and a bell pepper are sufficient as a dinner vegetable portion. We deleted the egg noodles and added cauliflower, as you'll see in the picture.

Enough whining; the Hungarian version of chicken cacciatore is good weeknight food. It's also one of those perfect, "add ___ and pause" kind of meals where you can manage to do all of your mise en place and cleaning while it's simmering away. The sour cream and dill really make the recipe, adding a fresh and creamy texture to an otherwise hearty braised dish.

Steak with Roasted Carrots and Onions

Week 1, Day 4, will need a do-over... catch it next time.

Week 1, Day 5, however, was the perfect fit for a Friday night. Steak and wine is the best reward for a week of chicken and diet Coke. No idea what Newport steaks are; we bought a large NY strip steak and split it. Since we needed to open a new bottle of wine for the sauce, I opted for red; the sauce was a dark burgandy instead of a nice mustard color, but it was delicious. I've never cooked with tarragon before; Central Market doesn't carry it in the local herb section, so I bought the package and was scared when I opened it and smelled the black licorice-y flavor. Fortunately, the dijon and the wine tone down the anise and negate the Twizzler effect. So easy that this may be my go-to sauce for steak. And I love when recipes remind me that all you need to bring out the best flavor in vegetables is olive oil, salt, pepper and a roasting pan (see, e.g., asparagus). Somehow the onions imbued their scent not only in my entire kitchen, but in the carrots as well.

Turkey Burgers with Creamy Romaine Slaw

Week 1, Day 3 (skipping the pasta dish due to excess carbs, boo).

I have never been a huge fan of turkey burgers. I think this is because I've seen too many episodes of the Biggest Loser where Jillian and Bob chastise the contestants for eating ground turkey that is not strictly breast meat; therefore, when I am trying to have a "healthy" burger, I'll substitute chicken breast or a black bean burger. But it turns out black bean burgers have a huge amount of sodium, and even 93/7 turkey is low in calories, and we're all going to die anyway. Also: my first turkey burger was incredibly bland and difficult to forget.

But these turkey burgers are not bland! It's kind of the Giada de Laurentiis throw a bunch of stuff in the turkey meatballs approach (see here). I liked the tangy mustard, and the oniony scallions, and I loved that I had already bought thyme for the previous day's recipe. The romaine and carrot slaw was a fun topping; my husband admitted that he hated coleslaw, but that this version was both creamier and more flavorful. Success! I used baby romaine, which took a little longer to slice, but I used a food pro for grating the carrots and that went quickly.

Roasted Tilapia, Potatoes and Lemons

Skipping back to week 1 of the Real Simple one-month meal plan.

The roasted tilapia, potatoes and lemons was a nice balance of summer and winter-- crisp, fresh lemons and tilapia and familiar, homey potatoes and thyme. Kalamata olives to add a Mediterranean flair. Perfect for October. At the risk of sounding cliche, this looked incredibly sophisticated but was real simple.

Next time, I'll make it ever-so-slightly more complicated but keeping half of the thyme on stems and breaking off the leaves and chopping the other half. The thyme looked appealing on stem, but was difficult to eat, especially when the roasted lemons also fell apart and we were picking out lemon zest as well. The lemon issue may have been user error; next time I'll use a larger pan and try to get them crispy on top (this time, I used a small casserole and ended up putting the tilapia on top of the lemons and potatoes).

Chorizo and Potato Tacos with Black Bean and Radish Side

Skipping Red Currant-Glazed Chicken with Spinach for now... will blog on the next go around...

Okay, these chorizo and potato tacos are awesome. My husband actually saw this recipe in the magazine and asked every night if we were finally having it. It's one of those silly things -- I love tacos with potatoes but never made them at home because I thought the true dice would be too time-consuming. However, when you use bursting-with-flavor chorizo, you can spend an extra minute chopping because you save time on seasoning. Similarly, I usually serve plain canned black beans, which I like but don't love. Here, though, the beans are not reheated. The radish/lime/cumin/cilantro combo really helped step them up (although I refuse to call it a "salsa" since there aren't any peppers). We used low-carb wheat tortillas and ate the beans on the side since the chorizo mixture more than filled them up. This recipe followed the warm meat, cold side pattern the other recipes used; I'll have to see if that carries through the other weeks.

Overall, YUM, but... by far the least healthy of the week. It's difficult to get an exact count on chorizo, since we used the Central Market links, but it was not bueno. The pork fat covered potatoes, though-- muy bueno.

Lamb Meatballs with Couscous and Feta

Real Simple week 2, day 2...

These lamb meatballs came together so fast it made me totally rethink meatballs! It helped to divide up the lamb mixture in four equal chunks, and then each chunk into 5 pieces. I never think of serving just raw tomato/cucumber as vegetable sides, but they were so fresh and delicious here mixed in with the lamb, dressing and couscous. (As an aside, for the "English cucumber" I believe the magazine is referencing a seedless cucumber-- mine actually happened to be from Canada). I can't imagine these would be as good with hamburger, but it was tempting to get extra lean ground beef since I know the ground lamb is fairly fatty... oh well. One final invaluable hint here: 4 oz. is A LOT of feta. Without a kitchen scale, I would never have guessed it was so much. It felt nice to get the extra :)

Overall, our second favorite of week 2.

Real Simple Four-Week Dinner Plan / Curry Shrimp and Snow Peas

October's Real Simple features a four-week dinner plan of easy weeknight recipes. Last week we did week 2-- we got out of order because the first meal of week 1 (Roasted Tilapia, Potatoes and Lemon) was too close to the Baked Cod and Chorizo to have 2 weeks in a row. So far, the recipes are simple and quick as promised, and the variety is incredible. We tend to fall in a fish/chicken Mexican/stir-fry rut, and even though I plan each week in advance I've never tried to vary the cuisine this much, which I'm definitely going to start doing. However, we have had some problems with the emphasis on white flour based dishes (toast, pizza, pasta) and therefore it looks like I'll be eliminating or adapting 1-2 recipes a week.

To start, the curry shrimp and snow peas. Bean sprouts and red curry paste are ingredients I have never bought before-- yay branching out! Central Market has a bulk bin of bean sprouts in the produce section, near the bulk lettuce, so I was able to buy just the right amount. I ended up using quinoa instead of rice, as we were out of brown rice, and this dish definitely needed something to soak up the sauce. Overall, I loved the cold, crunchy vegetables and the warm, Thai-style shrimp; not sure that I loved them together, in the same bowl. Next time, I think we'll try this as an entree and a side.