White Bean Chili, Black Truffle Trout, Cashew Mac & Cheese, Crispy Tofu, Honey Mustard Burger Bowls, Strawberry Sheet Cake & More!

These were some of our meals during the coldest weather a few weeks ago and they really hit the spot!

There was white bean chili with slow cooked chicken, buffalo sauce and lots of toppings, delicious but kind of ugly speckled trout with a creamy black truffle sauce, along with lentils and turnips, cashew squash Mac & cheese with crispy tofu and braised cabbage, honey mustard burger bowls with oven fries, leftover beef and mac for a hamburger helper type situation and a beautiful and tasty strawberry sheet cake!

White Bean Chili with Chicken and All the Toppings!

This was so delicious and fairly hands off and easy!

I soaked my white beans for 24 hours first with a splash of vinegar, then put them in the bottom of the Instant Pot with a little bone broth and water. Then I put the trivet on top of the beans and seasoned some chicken leg quarters with garlic and onion powders, paprika, black pepper, coriander, cumin and a drizzle of buffalo sauce. These were from roosters we hatched out and raised and they take longer to reach full size than broilers, so they definitely needed some proper time in the pressure cooker to become tender enough to shred.

An hour did the trick and was plenty of time for the beans to fully cook and soften, too.

I carefully took out the chicken on the trivet and let it cool enough to handle.

Then I sautéed onions, carrots and green peppers (clutch timing for those last of the season peppers from Kennedy Family Farms before the freeze). Then I added in the beans and the shredded chicken and tasted to adjust for seasonings but it was plenty flavorful from the seasoned chicken broth and bean combo!

We loaded it with toppings — tortilla chips recrisped in the toaster oven, avocado, fermented jalapeños, fresh cilantro and scallions, Greek yogurt and another drizzle of buffalo sauce. It was so good and amazing as leftovers all that chilly week!

Ugly Delicious Black Truffle Trout, Black Lentils & Turnips

This was a mid week situation that wasn’t the prettiest meal I’ve ever cooked, but it was so tasty and hit all the boxes — protein, fiber and lots of vitamins and minerals.

I started by soaking black lentils overnight and then cooking them with a little broth and seasoning with salt, turmeric, garlic and onion powders, black pepper coriander and red pepper.

Then I roasted some hakurei turnips and made a sauce for some speckled trout filets out of ALL CAPS caps & cream mix, goat creole cream cheese, truffle mayo, dijon mustard and a little honey. Once the turnips had a head start, I pushed them to the edges and roasted the fish on the same sheet pan.

We rounded it out with a salad with mixed greens, apples, crispy scallions, parmesan and balsamic dressing.

Cashew Squash Mac & Cheese with Crispy Tofu & Braised Savoy Cabbage

I made a big batch of creamy pasta sauce with roasted squash, cashews, tomato paste and broth after Thanksgiving and froze half of it. So I pulled it out of the freezer for some comfort food during the cold snap.

There was also a block of tofu to use up and I really have a hard time straying from my favorite recipe that involves a wet batter made from avocado oil, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, cornstarch and seasonings. It gets coated and crispy in the oven that way and is just so good.

I also braised some Savoy cabbage and topped to all with parmesan, extra seasonings and diced scallions — super delicious!

Honey Mustard Burger Bowls with Oven Fries

We love potatoes so much and have realized how unfairly maligned by diet culture they have been. They have more potassium than bananas, lots of other vitamins and minerals and not to mention fiber. When roasted with a little oil, they’re also fairly low calorie for how filling they are.

So when we crave burgers but want to keep it lighter, we have no problem skipping the bun and just making a burger bowl, but we have to have the potatoes!

We’ve done a lot of burger salads in the last few years and usually make a typical burger sauce with ketchup, mustard, mayo, garlic powder and sometimes horseradish or other ingredients.

This time we did a truffle honey mustard route (also have been on a big truffle kick lately) and it was maybe the best burger bowl ever, I highly recommended!

I sautéed onions first and then added the ground beef, seasoning with mushroom seasoning and garlic salt and eventually adding dijon mustard and Worcestershire sauce.

We used frisée and tatsoi for the salad greens, then added the ground beef and onion mix, a homemade truffle honey mustard dressing, diced avocado, fermented honey mustard pickles, fermented jalapeños, cheddar and feta cheeses, everything bagel seasoning (why not?) and the roasted potato half moons on the side. Simple, but truly one of the best things we ate in January!

Hamburger Helper-esque Leftovers

We had plenty of leftover ground beef in the pack, so I made another round of sautéed ground beef to go with leftover Mac & cheese and cabbage, heating up the pasta and cabbage with some extra bone broth.

We had a simple salad on the side with the leftover truffle honey mustard dressing, which was also such a great combination.

Strawberry Sheet Cake

I brought this to a farm friends’ gathering to kick off February and used my techniques from all the cakes I made in November in December. Whatever the recipe says, I am now committed to making sure the eggs, butter and buttermilk or milk come to room temperature and to separating the egg yolks and whites and whipping the egg whites and folding them in separately at the end. It really makes the texture and fluffiness of a basic cake so much better!

The pastry flour from Barton Springs Mill also seems to make a huge positive difference in cake flavor and texture, too.

This was a fairly basic sheet cake recipe, with pureed strawberries and almond extract mixed into the batter and more pureed strawberries in the cream cheese icing. I also sliced fresh strawberries on top and it was a total dream. I’ll probably have to make another one before strawberry season is over!