rice Archives - The Scratch Advantage

I am recapping a bunch of new recipes that I made over the last couple weeks/months for you guys! I will review and let you know what changes we made for each recipe.

New blog author favorite: The Defined Dish

I love following the Alex from The Defined Dish! The recipes are all very approachable, healthy, and delicious. Plus, she lives in Dallas TX, so her seasons are the same as mine… which is helpful when all the other bloggers I am following are posting soups and chilis right now but it’s still 90+ degrees in Texas.

These are the recipes I have tried so far from her website:

Paleo Sweet and Sour Chicken Stir Fry (5/5) — Trey and I love this one and have made it several times since first discovering it! We are not following a paleo diet, so we use regular rice and the “normal” versions of some ingredients. For example, we use soy sauce instead of coconut aminos. The amount of sauce is great for just the chicken, but when you add rice, I think we prefer a bit more sauce so I would 1.5x the sauce recipe if you are similar-minded. (If you are worried it would not be enough sauce, I’d go ahead and 1.5x the recipe.)
Easy Chicken and Vegetable Curry (4/5) — I really like this one, but I feel like I prefer the vegetables in it to the chicken. I think that is a personal preference though because Trey likes the chicken a lot in this meal. I usually have made it with regular potatoes, not sweet potatoes, because that is what I’ve had around to use. We serve this with regular rice as well, not cauliflower rice.
Ginger-Scallion Chicken Fried Cauliflower Rice (3/5) — This one was OK but we didn’t use cauliflower rice, which was probably a mistake! We tried to use regular rice but the volumes of cauliflower rice to regular rice do not equate… so we ended up with a huge volume of rice to chicken. What I would do next time, I would probably just make the ginger-scallion chicken with the sauce and serve it over the rice instead of doing it as a fried rice. I would also add more scallions than it calls for!
Sizzling Shrimp Fajitas (2/5) — We liked the concept of this but found our shrimp to turn out way too watery for some reason. I think it may have been something to do with the brand that we bought, but I’m not 100% certain. We didn’t buy the tail-on shrimp and ours were a lot smaller than hers appear to be in the picture. I would maybe try this again, but I’m not dying to do it again.

Besides Alex’s blog, we have also made the recipes below.

Pesto Mac & Cheese (5/5) — This is such an easy recipe, and the addition of the basil pesto makes this meal feel more elevated than a normal mac & cheese recipe. The only change we made was just using normal sharp cheddar (tillamook brand!) cheese because we didn’t want to splurge on Havarti.
Chocolate Olive Oil Cake (5/5) — I was looking for a good potluck cake, and I didn’t want to head to the store… so this is what I ended up on. It is very delicious and extremely fudgy! Plus, it is very simple. I think you could make this honestly with any sort of oil because the taste does not come through at all.

Hope you all find something you enjoy! Let me know if you try any of these recipes!

Enjoy this photo of our delicious chocolate olive oil cake.

Can you believe it’s almost May? I think every year, April is one of those months that goes by very quickly for me. I am excited for more spring and summer vegetables to use in our meal plans over the next couple weeks!

Recap of last week’s meal plan:

Last week, we made quite a few meals, and I wanted to first give you a quick recap of the recipes we made and what we thought about them.

Spaghetti with Swiss Chard : 4/5 stars!
- I really enjoy this meal. Last time we made it, it was too spicy, so this time, we reduced the amount of chili flakes we added to about half. It definitely improved the heat level for us. This recipe is one of my favorite ways to use Swiss chard.
White bean & kale quesadillas : 5/5 stars!
- We loved this meal! The texture of the kale with the white beans was fantastic, and the spicing was perfect for us. I will say that doing them one at a time on a skillet took FOREVER. Next time, we will do them on our griddle so we can do 4-5 at a time and reduce the cook time by 30-40 min.
Braised beef with lots of onions : 5/5 stars!
- This recipe is one of our favorites, though we always waffle on which sides to make with it. This time around we had it with some bread and leftover beet salad. I do think this is more of a winter dish. However, the flavors are fantastic and made a fun Easter dinner celebration.
Multigrain bread : 2/5 stars
- I am planning on writing a whole separate post on this bread. In general, I was not able to get a good rise out of this bread during the final prove. It tasted fine but turned out very flat and dense.
New York Chopped Salad : 3/5 stars
- Surprisingly, we both liked this one. It was a good way to use up the romaine lettuce we had from the farmers’ market, though it was a bit time-consuming with the preparation. I’d make it again, but I may not stick to a specific recipe or do the same dressing.

In general, I won’t repeat reviews unless we changed something about the recipe, as we do repeat recipes (e.g. baked oatmeal) fairly often.

This Week’s Meal Plan:

Now onward to this week’s meal plan…

Weekly meal plan - April 27 to May 03 — Weekly meal plan – April 27 to May 03

CSA Vegetables - Carrots, broccoli, Swiss chard, black beans, collard greens, romaine lettuce — Carrots, Broccoli, Swiss Chard, Black Beans, Collard Greens, Romaine Lettuce

We are about to go on vacation next week (HOORAY!) so this week will be a bit busy due to packing, trip planning, etc. Before trips, I try to use up a lot of pantry-items or items that I think may go bad when we are away. We actually did not use any of our cookbook sources this week and are falling back on our staples. These tend to be easy dishes that can be changed up to match the veggies and ingredients you have on hand.

We will try one recipe that’s new — the lemony pasta with collard greens from Cookie and Kate’s website. I’m excited for a new way to use collard greens and will keep you updated on how it goes.

Our staple recipes…

Vegetable fried rice is based on this fantastic recipe from Cookie and Kate’s website. This week, based on what we received in the CSA, we made it with Swiss chard, cabbage, and spring onions from the farmers market. My husband was suspicious about the Swiss chard, but he really enjoyed it in this dish!

Our version of tacos will be basically roasting whatever veggies (broccoli in this case) we have on hand, cooking black beans, and then serving with simple toppings. Our toppings include cheese, salsa, cherry tomatoes and avocado. We will also thaw some of our grass-fed ground beef from Gina’s Acres farm that we bought in the last farmers market in our area.

After Wednesday, you’ll see a lot of TBD — we need to be sure to use up our CSA veggies that will arrive on Wednesday. Thus, I did not set any specific plans as I think we will improvise based on what we receive.

What are you cooking this week? Are you excited to get into summer veggie season? I know I am ready for tomatoes and corn!