Last year was not what I hoped it would be so I’ll be doing everything I can to make 2024, an amazing year. I’m starting this year off by cooking every dinner that I make in January. I’ve been putting a lot of time into perfecting my cooking and what better way to do it than to get a whole lot of practice.
Here are the dishes that I made during the first week of January:
On New Year’s Day, I made Honey Marinated Steak with roasted carrots on a bed of white rice. It came out really good! The honey made the steak super tender, the savory carrots complimented the sweetness of the steak, and the rice was a perfect base for it all. This turned out to be a great place to start the cooking challenge. The recipe was easy to execute and really tasty, and the final product came out really visually appealing. It gave me the confidence I needed to keep going and keep cooking.
Day 2 wasn’t as lucky. I attempted a spicy pork belly fried rice, where I tried to combine a vegetable fried rice recipe with a recipe for sweet and spicy pork belly. The rice came out way too oily and had an overabundance of sauce. I want to try this recipe again without marinating the pork overnight and lessening the amount of oil I use overall, to account for the fat in the pork belly. I could also boil the pork belly before I throw it in the rice if I don’t want to lessen the amount of oil in the recipe, but I’m still not sure which way I’d rather go.
On day 3, I woke up in the mood for a fried chicken sandwich. Last year, I got a bread maker and since then, store-bought sandwich bread was been a thing of the past in my household. I whipped up a loaf of Focaccia Bread in the morning because who needs sandwich bread when you can have bread covered in olive oil! At first, I was a little worried it would be too oily but I gave both the fried chicken cutlet and the bread, sufficient time to rest, and it came out delectable! If the bread would have been a little thinner and some crispy lettuce would have been added on top, the sandwich would have been absolutely perfect. I’ll definitely be trying this again but with a killer sauce to bring it all together.
On day 4, I didn’t have anything in particular that I was craving, so I kept it simple and made crispy smashed potatoes, oven-roasted chicken thighs, and roasted vegetables. I had seen a couple of people I follow on Instagram try smashed potatoes as an easy potato recipe and all I can say is, wow. Out of everything on the plate, the potatoes definitely stood out as the tastiest thing on that plate. Next time, I’d like to make a whole tray of smashed potatoes, with different variations throughout the tray (i.e. Cheese crusted smashed potatoes, salt and olive oil smashed potatoes, garlic and herb smashed potatoes, etc).
Since the fourth day was a fairly healthy meal, on day 5 I decided to go with crispy pork belly and roasted green beans over rice. It was filling but not too heavy, which is something that I frequently worry about when cooking pork. My pork recipe earlier this week was a complete bust, so I had to make this plate a good one. I cooked the pork belly in the air-fryer for about 18 minutes at 375 degrees and I baked the green beans in the oven for 14 minutes at 400 degrees. This recipe took the least amount of time out of all the recipes I tried this week and it was also my favorite. I’d definitely like to perfect my crispy air-fried pork belly recipe before I share it, but I definitely feel like I’m close to a breakthrough on this marinade.
On day 6, I did a very basic chicken over rice. I can’t even recall how many times and how many variations of this dish I’ve had in my lifetime, so I know there’s no way I could mess this up. I chopped the boneless chicken thighs into 1-inch chunks and then let it sit in lemon juice, smoked paprika, Italian seasoning, gochujang, and garlic salt, for about 30 minutes Then I put it in the airfrier until it was nice and crispy. I then took the chicken out and tossed in a small amount of teriyaki sauce, sprinkled in some sesame seeds and green onions, and it (thankfully) came out really good!
Day 7 took forever to get here, but when it did, I took the opportunity to make spam musubis for the first time! This is probably one of the easier new recipes I’ve learned recently and I can definitely see myself making different variations of this recipe soon. The extra musubis even held up well for lunch the next day, which was honestly something I didn’t expect.
And just like that, my first week of 2024 is done. It went a lot better than I expected and my biggest lesson of the week is that I have to be kinder to myself (probably more of a life lesson than a cooking lesson lol). I spent way too much time gaslighting myself into believing that I have no talent in cooking when in reality, I’m learning a lot really fast. Almost every day I surpassed my expectations, and eating has become a lot more enjoyable for me. I hope the rest of this month is a little less introspective and a little tastier.
Stay tuned for the results of week 2 of cooking every dinner I eat in January!
Food with Geenah 