Meal Plan for February Week 1

This month, Megan Gordon is here to give us a look at what meal planning looks like for her family! Megan is a writer and recipe developer living in Seattle, WA, the author of Whole Grain Mornings, and mom to a 2-year-old. Please welcome Megan!

February can feel like one of the longer months in Seattle, where I live. The weather is often wet and cold, and we’re all starting to itch for signs of spring.

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Show Your Olympic Spirit with International Nachos

Olive Garden recently debuted “Italian nachos” as a Super Bowl tie-in, but the idea is pretty genius in general, and naturally leads to thoughts about other international nachos.

Sure, the classic Mexican combo of tortilla chips and cheese is pretty perfect as-is, and adding meat, beans, salsa, and guac makes for a fabulous meal, yet why limit yourself to the same old ingredients (however delicious)? Tortilla chips are just neutral enough to accept any sort of spin on toppings, so your imagination is about the only limit. You can easily capture the flavors of, say, Greece or China or Morocco, in the beloved nacho format.

Once you realize this, it opens up new noshing possibilities for the rest of your life. But it also happens to be a timely revelation that dovetails perfectly with the upcoming Winter Olympics. What better way to express your team spirit through food than to whip up a batch of internationally-inflected nachos before you settle in for the figure skating championships? And if you’re hosting a party, make multiple batches of smothered chips and see which nation’s nachos win gold, silver, and bronze by guest consensus.

If you want to get a bit more elaborate, you can ditch the tortilla chips and use fried wonton wrappers, plantain or sweet potato chips, pappadums, or prawn crackers, depending on your toppings’ country of origin. It may be a bit more of a stretch, but you can even try more interpretive takes, like these:

1. Fry pierogis and top with kielbasa, sauerkraut, and dark mustard to rep your Polish pride.

2. Fry blini and cover with caviar and sour cream for Russian realness (if you can afford it), since they might not actually be banned from the 2018 Winter games after all.

3. Smother crisp, thin French fries (call ’em frites) with steamed mussels (taken out of their shells, if you please) and a mayo-based sauce if you’re rooting for Belgium.

4. Make baked “chips” from a super-skinny baguette sliced thin and blanket them with shredded duck confit and melted raclette for a Gallic treat (Frenchos?); hold the confit and replace the bread with small rounds of rösti and it’s Swiss.

5. Top toasted matzah pieces with all the ingredients of a good Israeli sabich.

6. Remove sticks from several corn dogs, slice into rounds, deep-fry, and top with American cheese and chili while chanting USA! USA! (Mostly kidding about that one…although it could totally work! After all, chili-cheese dog totchos do exist.)

As long as you have a big pile of crunchy bite-size bits topped with flavorful, preferably saucy, and possibly gooey ingredients, you’re still embracing the spirit of nachos, and probably enjoying every moment of it too. Try coming up with your own combos to honor your favorite country’s cuisine, or follow one of these inspired international nacho recipes:

Korean Nachos with Kimchi and Bulgogi Beef

Dinner with Julie

These Korean nachos involve frying wonton wrappers and topping them with sweet-salty bulgogi, spicy kimchi, and a white cheddar sauce thinned with juice from the kimchi jar. Brilliant. Get the recipe.

California Roll Nachos

I Am a Food Blog

Okay, so maybe California rolls are not anywhere near the best representation of Japanese food, but you can’t escape most sushi joints without being tempted by them—and these nachos loaded with crab, avocado, nori, and Kewpie mayo do look amazing. Get the recipe.

Indian Nachos

Pretty Patel

You can buy the light, crispy lentil flour Indian snacks called pappadums in stores or online, or you can make your own at home. If you can’t do nachos without cheese, add some shredded paneer to these and warm under the broiler for a minute, but don’t expect it to get gooey. And if you’re really hungry, consider adding chicken tikka masala (but eat fast before sogginess sets in)! Get the recipe.

Greek Nachos

Brooklyn Supper

Pita chips also make great Middle Eastern nachos, but here they’re going Greek (and vegan) with Mediterranean salad ingredients and an herbed tahini sauce. Feel free to add feta, and maybe meat, like ground beef or chopped gyro meat. Get the recipe.

North African Nachos

Land o Lakes

Chermoula-spiced lamb, roasted chickpeas, and a harissa cheese sauce lend pita chips North African flavors. (If you can’t find or don’t want to buy the specific products mentioned in the recipe, just follow any basic queso blanco recipe but leave out the spices like cumin and jalapeño and stir in some prepared harissa instead.) Get the recipe.

Loaded Tropical Plantain Nachos

Fed and Fulfilled

Fried plantain chips and pineapple-kiwi salsa conjure general tropical vibes without getting too place-specific, but switch out the beef for jerk chicken and call them Jamaican. Get the recipe.

Italian Nachos

Life in the Lofthouse

Maybe these are more Italian-American, and yes, they use wonton wrappers instead of pasta, but whatever. They’re a new and glorious way to deliver grilled chicken, mozzarella, and Alfredo sauce to your system. If that’s not enough for you, this version adds hot peppers and sausage. Get the recipe.

Chinese Potsticker Nachos

Pinch Me I’m Eating

Since hardcore authenticity is already out the window, consider these Chinese nachos with ginger-sesame wonton wrappers, shredded cabbage, juicy garlic pork, and a tangy soy-based dressing…or call them deconstructed egg rolls if that feels better. Get the recipe.

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Host a Winter Olympics Curling Party with These Stone-Shaped Foods

Paczkis, White Castle sliders, macarons, brioches, whoopie pies—what do all these foods have in common? The answer, of course, is with proper application of one of these doo-dads, they become edible mini curling stones! Yes, you can host a gathering that properly honors the unlikely hero of the Winter Olympics: curling! Help turn irreverence into begrudging adoration with this viewing party theme that’s just kitschy enough to work!

If you consider yourself a fan of Olympic curling, then you know all too well the four stages of fandom: Disdain, Curiosity, Acceptance, and finally, Reverence. The stage of Disdain (or Angry Confusion), usually comes at first watch—what are these people doing? Why are there brooms? Is this really a sport? However, leave the broadcast on long enough, and you will find yourself shifting into Curiosity, trying to grasp the goal of the sport, wondering if the sweepers are actually affecting the path of the curling stone.

Shutterstock

Acceptance comes when you find curling to be that mild, pleasant thing to put on in the background of a meal or gathering. And finally, you’ll know you have reached Reverence when you gasp at the realization that four years have passed, that Olympic curling is back! And when you find it interesting that most of the U.S. team is concentrated in Minnesota, and you think it’s so obvious that a dim sum bun is shaped just like a curling stone, and you note that this batter spreader is just cheap enough to be decorated as a makeshift sweeper’s broom—well, then you know you are primed to throw a curling viewing party that is tightly-themed, sketchily-executed, but completely frozen-Midwest chic.

Let’s embrace everything bizarre and wonderful about this UK-born and Canada-perfected sport, and throw everything stone-shaped we have at this quirky party theme. Now, what foods can you envision as curling stones?

Savory

The Woks of Life

If savory is your speed, then you should definitely start out with our Cheese Ball Turducken, which you could ostensibly crown with that previously-mentioned plastic hook for a perfect curling-themed appetizer. For variety, complement with these Chinese BBQ Pork Buns as well as our own recipe for sliders (that includes the separate recipe for the buns themselves), both of which maintain the curling stone roundness with pretty good precision. And who’s to say you’ve gone too far if you affix blue and white paper circles to red plates in an effort to mimic the curling bullseye? U.S. men’s team lead, John Shuster, would probably not say so.

Sweet

Seasons and Suppers

For sweeter “stones,” Paczkis are obvious, right? They have that lighter stripe where frying didn’t cook the dough as severely, as well as the perfect puffed disk shape—not too round, not too flat. Another superbly-shaped curling stone dessert comes in the form of our French Chocolate Macarons. You can also get a long piece of white paper, sketch up a quick curling sheet, and set the table with your batter-spreader brooms. Heck, throw in some of our Pumpkin Spice Whoopie Pies, too, and you’re set with a full-on curling sweets table that varies in flavor (and seasonal alignment?), but presents guests with the curling-stone doppelgangers they crave.

Another trio of treats that will invoke begrudging smiles includes our Conchas Blancas, these Custard Buns, and our Alfajores. The first two are still in the realm of that recognizable stone shape, and while Alfajores start to deviate, the stripe of Dulce de Leche brings them back to whimsical-curling-dessert territory.

Reaches

Chowhound

Let’s be real—these last foods are “reaches.” They don’t quite look like curling stones, but they are roundish, and they will make delicious and charming additions to your viewing party. On the savory side, we have our Mini Kale and Goat Cheese Risotto Cakes, our Sweet Potato and Chinese Sausage Fritters with Sriracha Aioli, and our Steamed Vegetable Dumplings. If you’re hosting a brunch-time viewing, you can try our Easy Cinnamon Rolls and our Cream Scones. With scones, you can even go the extra mile and serve with red currant jam, blueberry jam, and whipped butter in that bullseye design (either in a dish or on the scone itself)!

Now, I hope you feel armed with the stone-shaped foods necessary to win over curling detractors. The key is get them snacking on these apps and sweets long enough to catch a good portion of one game, so that they move into the Curiosity or Acceptance stages. Once you’re there, then it’s only a matter of time until they’ll be searching frantically online for streaming curling games—go Team U.S.A.!

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