Confessions of a Recipe Fanatic. Plus DeCOMPOSED Samosas, Potato Leek Soup, The Best GF Sandwich Bread, and Greek Skillet Chicken

Recipe Fanatic

I have a ton of ways that I save recipes. I’m a bit of a recipe hoarder. No, I’ll admit it. I’m a HUGE recipe hoarder. I have many cookbooks. A box of index cards filled with old recipes that I’ve had for… well, over 20 years. Two 3 ring binders stuffed with recipes that I’ve printed out (and one that I got from my Mimi. I definitely get my love of recipe collecting from her) And I even have an email address dedicated to recipe collection where I send myself recipes or links to recipes. Sound a bit extreme. But I love having the plethora of options!

I’m always looking for new ideas and inspiration. I think I was around 8 when I started collecting recipes and making up new recipes. I used a little blue notebook to save my ideas and recipes that I found.

I also plan my meals several days in advance. Not too far in advance that when plans inevitably change it all gets messed up. But I like to have a few days planned out so that I don’t have to think too hard in the moment to try to come up with something and so that I can plan ahead with what I need to have defrosted and in the fridge. I tend to stock up on meat and keep it in the freezer and then pull out a few things at a time and plan meals around those. I use a dry erase board for my planning so that I can make changes as the come. Sometimes that means that the plan that I’d come up with gets pushed back a day in lieu of pizza because I just can’t even with making dinner.

This seems like a lot of set up for:

DeCOMPOSED Samosas with GF Naan

But it’s important to have the background. I know you’re waiting to hear why I was making zombie samosas, but just bear with me.

I was looking for something to do with the ground beef I’d picked up (hey, a family 3 pack–1.3lbs each–at Aldi on sale for $16. Grassfed and organic! What?!) and was feeling kind of stumped with what to do with it. Something different. I flipped through several of my cookbooks but was uninspired. I searched “ground beef” in my recipe emails and scrolled down finding the recipe I’d sent myself in 2017 from My Heart Beets for Deconstructed Samosas. I’ve made it several times but it’s been ages. I remembered that it was good and the ingredients aren’t complicated. Bingo.

Ghee, potatoes, onions, spices, ginger–I always have on hand. Ginger in a tube for ease. I’m not a fan of peeling fresh ginger. You can use a spoon to peel it and that’s supposed to be easy but, eh.

Also peas (I usually have a frozen bag in the freezer) and a serrano pepper, but I’d leave that out anyway to keep it kid-friendly-mild. Fresh cilantro I could omit. So this seemed like the way to go with this ground beef.

The problem was the naan. I’ve made the naan from My Heart Beets in the past and… it’s okay. It is gluten free, paleo, and very easy. Almond Flour, Tapioca flour, and coconut milk. It comes together in a breeze. The problem is it is just really gummy. Unfortunately. It’s not terrible but it’s not my favorite.

But I’ll come back to the naan. I put the recipe up on my dry erase board along with my plan for the next several days.

We were about to have dinner that night and as I was grabbing something from the fridge, when I paused. “Decomposed Samosas” was written there. Clear as day.

What!? I started cracking up.

“I wrote decomposed samosas!” I exclaimed to the family waiting to eat in the other room.

“What?”

“We’re having deconstructed samosas,” I explained, still laughing. “But I wrote DECOMPOSED samosas! Ha ha ha! How did I manage to do that??”

“Oh, I did that,” said my teenager.

“Wait, you did?!”

“Yeah, you thought you wrote that?” Grinning.

“You got me!” I looked again as they came over.

“See anything else?” they asked.

Sure enough the overnight oats I’d planned were now listed as… “Overweight oats! Ha!”

Sneaky teenager.

When the night came for me to make the samosas, I’m pleased to tell you that they were deconstructed. Not decomposed.

Back to the recipe. Like I said, very easy to throw this together and cooks up all in one skillet. The tricky part is the naan. I wanted to do something a bit different than the paleo naan, so I went with the GF tortillas I’d made recently, except instead of rolling them out, I just sort of flattened them down with my hand so they were thicker before cooking them in the skillet. Worked amazingly! So delicious.

Then there was the:

Potato Leek Soup

This was a recipe from a cookbook. The Milk Street Fast or Slow book that I’ve been digging lately. This was my first time making this recipe and I was so impressed.

Olive oil, leeks, bay leaves, gold potatoes, carrots, garlic, etc. Adding smoked trout is optional. I added the the fish the first time and left it out when I made it again several days later. Great both ways. Again, with the recipes in this book you have the option of pressure cooking or slow cooking. Which is nice.

Last week I also made:

The Best Gluten Free Sandwich Bread

This really is the Best GF Sandwich bread ever. I got this from the cookbook, Baked to Perfection. There is a similar recipe on the Loopy Whisk site, but I haven’t tried it.

The cookbook version you need to make a psyllium husk gel, a yeast mix, and a tangzhong (cooking part of the dough in a saucepan until it’s a paste) along with all the other ingredients. Because it’s a UK book, I also needed to not only weigh out all the ingredients, but I had to convert them all too because everything is listed in grams and cm. You also need to use the stand mixer. And you need to let it rise not once, but twice. And you need to roll the dough out before you shape it.

That’s a lot of dishes. And a lot of steps. It all amounts to a lot of work. So the fact that I’ve made this more than once should attest to the fact that it is truly the best gluten free sandwich bread I’ve ever had. f you have the time to attempt it, it’s really worth all that work!

Then there was the

Greek Skillet Chicken

Closet Cooking! This was something that popped up in my social media feed and it just looked amazing. It had been on my list of things I wanted to make for some time, but there was a while where we were trapped at home and not able to get out to get groceries. The roads were so bad out there that I didn’t even feel comfortable ordering for them to be delivered. Mostly because the main roads were okay-ish but the back roads leading up to our house may have been a surprise to the drive that they wouldn’t be prepared for. These back roads over here are gravel and hilly and so slick with ice. Also, I can admit that I’m a bit traumatized by our recent car accident!

Back to the recipe. Once the roads were safe to travel, I was finally able to gather my supplies. Feta cheese was necessary for this and not something I normally buy. But feta cheese. Yuuuum.

You take the chicken breasts and pound them thin. Then allow them to sit in a herby lemon marinade. Lots of tomatoes. Kalamata olives. Green onions. It all comes together in a tasty meal. Some orzo rice would have been delicious with this. I used the leftover olives, feta, green onions and another chopped tomato to make a Greek salad with an oregano dressing.

The verdict was that the salad was delicious and the chicken was delicious and the sauce was okay. I think next time, I’d just make a big Greek salad, cook the chicken as per the recipe and put it on the salad.

And More

Some other stuff I cooked this week. Skillet pork chops with sauteed onions and bell peppers, more rice pudding minus raisins because we didn’t have any–it needs the raisins. Some creamy green eggs. I added herbs and freeze dried spinach powder, onions, and capers and some avocado oil mayo. Yummy. Another spatchcocked chicken. Some more overnight oats (not overweight oats!). Vanilla muffin bowls. Beet salad. Cornbread. Baked beans made with molasses this time (yum). And smoothies made with coconut milk, almond milk, bone broth powder, cashews, and frozen strawberries.