I haven’t posted on the food section of my blog for a while, even though that was the original purpose of this blog. That’s not because I haven’t been cooking - I’ve just been too lazy to post lately. My roommates and I have started meal prep-ing, which has honestly been one of the more fun and productive ways to kill pandemic time.

This week, Akshay joined in on the fun as we made four recipes:

1. Mediterranean White Bean Salad (Budget Bytes). We doubled up the recipe on this one, though we should have made more. Quick and easy to make, with little ingredient prep involved. Tasted cool and not overly heavy on the feta or the parsley (two flavors I normally don’t like, but really enjoyed here.) We used the Mediterranean Herb flavor feta from Odyssey.

2. Soy Dijon Pork Tenderloin (Budget Bytes). This was the second time that we’ve made this, and it was absolutely fire (again). We made 4 tenderloins (about 5 1/3 lbs.), though we were less than precise with the timing on the pan sauce. The pan sauce might be labeled as optional, but it’s a solid addition that can be run in parallel with the main dish.

3. Spicy Orecchiette with Chicken Sausage and Kale (Budget Bytes). Also a returner. We doubled up on the recipe here. This time, we pre-steamed the kale in the skillet so that we wouldn’t have overflow issues (and if you do this, you don’t need to reserve the pasta water either). Initially, I tried just putting kale in a skillet over heat. Once I added water to the skillet (not too much, the goal isn’t to eat water) the process went much quicker.

4. Pork and Peanut Dragon Noodles (Budget Bytes). Didn’t really expect much out of this, but easily the hit of the week. We tripled up the recipe and messed up the noodle texture by letting it rest for too long after we cooked the pasta - in the future, we can add cold water to the pasta after we’ve finished draining it to prevent it from softening up and cooking further. Otherwise, a super quick and super easy way to make a lot of tasty food. Crushing the peanuts was done via rolling pin.

We also ended up using our new food storage containers for the first time: the Kitchen & Table Rectangular Tempered Borosilicate Container (2.7 qt) were about $8 each and hold a ton of food. They’re absolute winners.