Hello from the trenches of cooking almost every day! I suppose I shouldn’t say “trenches” as I enjoy cooking (for the most part), but sometimes you do get that “in a rut” feeling.

When that happens to me, I like to look for new sources of recipes. For a while it was Bon Appetit‘s Rent Week features (annoying as it is to try and follow the recipes). Lately I’ve been turning more to Food52 and the New York Times’ Five Weeknight Dishes. Last week I made the latter’s chicken Caprese, baked fish with sesame and ginger, and herby pork larb with chile. (All of those recipes are here, I am not sure if you need a subscription to view all of them, NYTimes Cooking is temperamental.) Here are my quick reviews of each recipe:

Chicken Caprese: This recipe was fine, but I didn’t cut the “pockets” in the chicken breasts correctly and was therefore unable to saute them as called for. I baked them and they were okay if pretty unremarkable. I don’t think I’d beat a path to this recipe again.

Baked fish: This was good! I would make it again. I made it with $13/pound cod instead of $24/pound halibut (the recipe calls for either). I would not use a marinade on good halibut, frankly. Good halibut deserves to go nude. I served this with scallion rice. Next time I would add some greens.

Pork larb: YES FOUR STARS DO RECOMMEND. My husband asked me to make this again the following day. I did not do that, but I can see us eating a lot of larb this summer. I did not make the rice powder, I used finely chopped peanuts. Do whatever you want in this regard.

This week I am making one-pot turmeric coconut rice with greens and Food52’s slow cooker Mediterranean chicken thigh stew. Tonight we’re having leftovers; Tuesday and Friday will probably be carryout nights.

If it ever stops raining I can actually go to the grocery store to buy supplies for this grand adventure in meal planning.