Menu Plans and Jury Duty

(Week 2 of the 4-Week Cooking Habit)

Hi friends and Happy Friday! Welcome hugs to our new subscribers, both paid and free. I’m so glad you are here.

We are in week two of our 4-Week Cooking Habit. I hope you are having as much fun as I am.

If you remember, the goal of this month-long cooking club is to get us all in the routine of making dinner again with as little angst as possible. This means that when the Betty Eatz newsletter is delivered to your inbox on Friday, you receive a menu plan for the following week plus three easy dinner recipes that include a variety of proteins.

Paid subscribers receive extra goodies like downloadable/printable recipes and a shopping list, plus a dessert recipe that is absolutely worth the calories.

The nice thing about having a menu plan and recipes before the weekend hits is that you have a few days to get in your grocery shopping and prepare for the week ahead.

Mondays aren’t really this relaxing but you know what I mean. Photo by Fransiskus Filbert Mangundap on Unsplash

I’m not quite as anxious at the beginning of a week when I’ve got a plan and dinner ingredients on hand. The hardest thing is deciding what day to make dessert.

Two Words We Hate to Hear

I found last week’s menu plan to be so helpful since I had to report for jury duty. Yes, jury duty, the two words that everyone hates to hear. Out of the handful of times I’ve had to show up for jury duty, I’ve been selected twice to actually serve on the jury. What are the chances.

I also had this same prego dress in neon orange!

The first time I served I was eight and a half months pregnant, expecting our first child. While I was tempted to use my advanced pregnancy as an excuse not to serve, I heard other people give the judge so many lame reasons for why they couldn’t be a juror that I decided to stick it out and see what happened.

Wouldn’t you know, I made it to the final 12 jurors and spent the next two weeks learning firsthand how our justice system works. I was impressed by the no-nonsense judge and how smoothly everything ran in court.

Eighteen years later, that first child was in college and I got chosen again to be on a jury. Both times, the experience was fascinating to me and I actually enjoyed it (don’t tell anyone).

So, let’s look at what’s on the menu this week.

Week 2 Menu Plan

On the docket are a variety of flavor profiles including Asian-y, Middle Eastern-ish, and East Coast-inspired. Proteins featured are chicken, lentils, and shrimp. There are lots of pantry staples included so if you’ve been stocking your larder like we talked about a few weeks ago, you may find you only need to pick up a handful of items.

• 35-Minute Lemon Ginger Chicken Soup w/Soba Noodles

• Middle Eastern Lentil Meatballs with Red Pepper Sauce

• Sheet Pan Shrimp Boil

• Small Batch Cheesecake (for paid subscribers)

Remember, you are not handcuffed to any recipe’s ingredient list. If you want to add extra veggies to the soup, please do. Already have brown lentils and don’t want to purchase red ones? That’s totally fine. And if prefer purple potatoes rather than white, use them. You’re an adult, so do what you want.

Recipes

35-Minute Lemon Ginger Chicken Soup w/Soba Noodles

Serves 4

Total time: 35 minutes

Homemade chicken soup is delicious but can be an hours-long process to pull together, which is not so great on a weeknight. This one, however, clocks in at just over half an hour. With lemon, ginger, garlic, and Japanese soba noodles, this brothy soup has Asian overtones. Add mushrooms or bok choy if you want more veg. If you can’t find the noodles at your local Asian store or don’t want to order them on Amazon, you can sub in an equal amount of angel hair pasta.

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp olive or avocado oil

• 1 ½ cups onion, diced

• 1 ½ cups celery, diced

• 2 Tbsp minced garlic

• 2 Tbsp peeled and minced fresh ginger

• 8 cups chicken broth

• 1 tsp kosher salt

• 1 tsp freshly cracked black pepper

• 1 ½ to 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 2-inch pieces

• 4 oz buckwheat soba noodles (I buy Hakubaku brand on Amazon)

• Garnishes: chopped green onions, lemon wedges, Sriracha or chili garlic sauce

Directions:

1. Heat a large pot over medium-high heat. Once the pan is hot, pour in the oil, onion, celery, garlic, and ginger. Stir to coat the veg in oil. Saute until the onion softens, 5 to 6 minutes.

2. Tip in the broth, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then drop in the chicken. Cover the pot and lower the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes.

3. While the chicken is simmering, cook the soba noodles in a separate pot following the package directions. Buckwheat cooks quickly, so you can cook, drain, and rinse them at the last minute.

4. Assemble your soup bowl by placing some noodles into a bowl and then ladling on the broth and chicken. Add the garnishes and serve hot.

Middle Eastern Lentil Meatballs with Red Pepper Sauce

Serves 4

Total time: 90 minutes

This dish is protein-packed, meat-free, dairy-free, and easily adapted to be vegan by using flax meal instead of an egg. It’s delicious with the easy roasted red pepper sauce and it’s great with a dollop of zhoug (did you make some a few weeks back? If not, the recipe is here). While I don’t own an air fryer, a friend of mine does and says these meatballs can probably be cooked in one. If you try it, let us all know in the chat!

Meatballs:

• ¾ cup dried red lentils

• 1 can (14.5 oz) chicken or veggie broth

• 1 cup uncooked old-fashioned rolled oats (not steel cut)

• 1 shallot, coarsely chopped

• 2 cloves garlic

• 1 egg (or 1 Tbsp flax meal with 2 ½ Tbsp water)

• ¼ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley

• 2 Tbsp tomato paste

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• 1 tsp kosher salt

• ½ tsp ground black pepper

Sauce:

• 1 jar (15 oz) roasted red peppers, drained

• ¼ cup olive or avocado oil

• 1 tsp smoked paprika

• ½ tsp kosher salt

• ½ tsp granulated garlic

Side:

• 1 ½ cup Israeli (pearl) couscous

• 1 Tbsp olive oil

• 2 cups water or broth

• Fresh chopped parsley or cilantro for garnish

Directions:

1. Make the meatballs by pouring the broth into a medium saucepan. Bring the broth to a boil. Rinse the lentils in a fine mesh strainer, discarding any small stones or wrinkled lentils, and tip them into the broth. Lower the heat and simmer, covered, for 20-ish minutes or until lentils are soft and water is absorbed.

2. While the lentils cook, add the remaining meatball ingredients (oats, shallot, garlic, egg, parsley, tomato paste, oregano, salt, and pepper) into a blender or food processor. Pulse for a few seconds to combine.

3. Once the lentils are done, add them to the blender. Blitz for a few seconds until everything is combined. Allow the mixture to sit for 10 minutes to hydrate the oats. The mixture will be slightly loose but should be cohesive enough to hold together. If it is still too loose after 10 minutes, stir in another ¼ cup of rolled oats. At this point, you can transfer the mixture to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight if you are prepping ahead of time.

4. Preheat the oven to 425F/220C. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

5. Use a 1 ½-inch cookie scoop to scoop out the lentil mixture. I got 18 meatballs using this size cookie scoop. If you don’t care how they look, use a large spoon to portion them out. Place scoops on the baking sheet evenly spaced. They will not spread so you can place them fairly close together. Spray or brush the tops with olive oil. Bake for 20 minutes.

6. Make the sauce by adding all the sauce ingredients (red peppers, oil, paprika, salt, garlic) into a blender or food processor. Blitz until smooth. Pour into a bowl and set aside.

7. Make the Israeli couscous by heating the oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the couscous and stir to coat in the oil. Cook for a few minutes to toast the pearls until they are light brown. Add the water or broth and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to low, cover, and allow to simmer for 15 minutes or until the water is absorbed and couscous is tender. Remove from the heat.

8. Serve the lentil meatballs and couscous together, drizzling the sauce over the top. Garnish with fresh herbs.

Sheet Pan Shrimp Boil

Serves 4

Total time: 45 minutes

Sheet pans continue to save the day at my house and I love that an entire dinner can be cooked on one. This is one of the easiest sheet pan meals because you are just dumping ingredients on the pan and roasting. Plus, you don’t even need plates or forks! My husband and I ate this straight off the sheet pan while standing at the kitchen counter, sharing a beer, and talking about our day.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds red and yellow baby potatoes

• 13 oz. package smoked andouille sausage, cut into 1/2-inch slices

• 2 ears fresh or frozen corn, cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces

• 1 pound large shrimp, peeled

• 1/4 cup butter, melted

• 1 Tbsp Old Bay seasoning

• Chopped fresh dill or parsley to garnish

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F/204 C. Liberally grease a rimmed sheet pan with olive oil.

2. Add the potatoes and cut sausage to the sheet pan in a single layer. Bake for 20 minutes.

3. Remove the pan from the oven. Scootch the sausage and potatoes over to make room for the corn pieces and shrimp. Arrange everything so it is in a single layer.

4. Stir together the melted butter and Old Bay. Pour half the mixture over the shrimp and the remainder of it over the corn and potatoes. Return the pan to the oven and bake for 12 minutes or until the shrimp is pink.

5. Garnish with chopped herbs and serve.

The recipe for Small Batch Cheesecake plus downloadable recipes and shopping list are below for Paid Subscribers.