Dinner this Week: French Onion and Apple Soup; Ma Po Tofu

What a delicious week we had! My sister was in town on Tuesday, so we had her over for dinner and ate French Onion and Apple Soup. Definitely time intensive (it takes almost an hour just to caramelize the onions) but also definitely worth it! I added a skinless, boneless chicken breast to make it an entree dish--just toss in the chicken when you add the broth, and at the end, remove, shred with two forks, and return to the pot.

I also made the following subs:
-2 tbsp butter, not 3
-~1/2 tsp dried time in place of the sprigs
-apple juice instead of cider
-cider vinegar in place of the sherry vinegar
-no cheese.

We had this with a simple salad (read: bowl of lettuce) with a maple-mustard vinaigrette (olive oil, grainy mustard, cider vinegar and maple syrup). The only real downfall is that we were all pretty hungry again within a couple hours of eating. Next time, more chicken!

Later in the week, P and I had Ma Po Tofu. I had this dish once in Okinawa and looooved it, so I was really excited to find a recipe in CL! This I made fairly close to the recipe, but with Boca crumbles in place of the sirloin, no chili oil, sticky brown rice (we are a no white rice household, outside of risotto) and chopped broccoli (no broccolini at the HT!). Sooooo good that P had almost 3 servings!

Also, both make amazing leftovers. In fact, since I forgot to take pics at dinner this week, that's how you get to see the ma po tofu:

This year is off to a delicious start! It's a good thing these are CL recipes, because I need to fit into my wedding dress in March...