Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Grain Bowls

I was reading the January/February issue of Chatelaine on the flight home from Mexico, and saw the weekly meal plan featuring five days of grain bowls.  Last week we made all five of the bowls from the magazine.

First up was a turkey and farro burrito bowl:


This was the cover recipe, and we thought it was terrible.  Actually, we didn't use the egg on top, because when reading the list of ingredients and the recipe, it just didn't seem to fit at all.


We don't shy away from putting eggs on dishes where eggs wouldn't normally go, such as hamburgers, poutine, noodles, etc., but on top of a burrito bowl!?  It seemed bizarre.  The worst part about this bowl was the raw radish slices.  We are both big radish fans, but again, they did not belong in a burrito bowl, and the textures were all off in this dish.  The other thing that we found frustrating was that sour cream, although listed as optional in the recipe, was not listed at all in the shopping list provided.  We used the shopping list as it was intended - to shop from, and were disappointed when reading the recipe later on, as we had to go back to the store for sour cream (it's not optional in this house).


Next up was a Mediterranean quinoa bowl:


We thought this one was pretty good, but again were disappointed, as the hummus and/or tzatziki, which this time were not optional ingredients, were not listed in the shopping list.  Very frustrating.

The poke bowl was really good:


We thought that most of the ingredients fit in this dish, although we'd likely switch it up a bit if we made it again (maybe eliminate the carrot and cabbage, and add cucumber, sesame seeds and wasabi).

The fourth bowl was a falafel Buddha bowl:


The best part of this one was the roasted acorn squash; it was delicious!  The rest of the bowl was okay, but we thought that there should have been a lot more sauce.  We ended up making another batch of sauce, as there wasn't even enough for our two bowls, and the recipe was for four people!

The last bowl we made was a hoisin chicken rice bowl:


This was one of the best of the recipes we tried.  There was Mandarin orange in it, which paired really well with the chicken.

All of the recipes we tried were super easy, and took no more than 40 minutes to make, including both prep and cooking time.  It was convenient that there was a grocery list to follow, organized really well by produce, grains, etc., but it was disappointing that two of the ingredients were missed on the list.  I'd say overall the recipes were decent, but none of them were keepers.

Have you ever followed a weekly meal plan from a magazine, website, or book?  Are there any you follow regularly?

2 comments:

Lisa's Yarns said...

That's annoying that they left ingredients out of the shopping list. Even if they seemed optional, they should have included them and noted that they were optional. I would have been annoyed as the whole point of the shopping list is to not have to go through the individual recipes!

I've looked at meal plans in a magazine but have never followed any of them. Mostly because they tend to include things I can't eat due to my gluten intolerance. But I love looking through magazines for inspiration. My mom subscribes to the Food Network magazine so I flip through it when I am at the lake and take pictures of recipes that I want to try!

Amber said...

I was just eyeing up that magazine issue at the grocery store checkout line!! I might have to get it as all those recipes look amazing.