Let’s start this meal recap with something good:
Pizza
When we have time, we use the leisurely pizza dough recipe from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. Deb has a similar dough recipe on her blog. Paired it with a salad topped in our favorite buttermilk ranch dressing.
Grilled Chicken and Salad
Easy peasy grilled chicken (just season and grill), plus a salad and rice pilaf from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything.
Breakfast Enchiladas
This recipe was a good way to use up some of the Easter ham we still have in the freezer. I thought it was pretty good the day of, but wasn’t as in love with the leftovers the next day. Noel said he wouldn’t request it again.
Veggie Egg Rolls
This recipe goes way back in the blog archives. We baked the egg rolls, but you can also fry them.
Sesame Chicken Salad
This was a good recipe to use up extra cabbage from the egg rolls. I am a total sucker for a good salad and really enjoyed this. The dressing was good, but not too overpowering.
DIY Oatmeal Packets
We did a mini backpacking trip and made a new oatmeal variation. This one had freeze dried raspberries and toasted almonds. When we cooked it, we added packets of honey peanut butter. Yum.
Breakfast for Dinner
We eat breakfast for dinner a lot. At least once a week, sometimes more. We love breakfast food, but never seem to have time to make anything really good for breakfast. For some reason those same recipes that seem tedious in the morning are super quick for dinner though. This meal features hashbrowns, chocolate chip pancakes, fried eggs, and a cherry chocolate smoothie.
Sheet Pan Chow Mein
Maybe you’ve picked up on it, but I also really like Americanized Chinese food. Our family really liked this sheet pan chow mein from Smitten Kitchen. I used ramen noodles for the noodles and threw some leftover chicken in to give it some protein and use up leftovers. The kids loved this, especially the mini corns.
Cherry Vanilla Cake
Our oldest turned 11 (hold on while I take some deep breaths into a paper bag . . . Okay, I’m back) and requested a cherry vanilla cake. This is another recipe from the blog’s way back machine. Cooper choose to frost the whole thing in buttercream, but I kind of missed the Swiss meringue. I think it tones down the sweetness a bit.
Summer Coconut Chickpea Currey with Rice and Fried Halloumi
This was a recipe that kept getting pushed back on the meal plan because there wasn’t a ton of enthusiasm about it, but when we finally tried it I was blown away by it. I had never had Halloumi before and was pleasantly surprised to discover my local Kroger store carried it. The flavor of this was really quite good. You could make it Vegan by leaving out the Halloumi, but if you’re not opposed to cheese I highly recommend keeping it because it really made the meal.
Mother’s Day Meals
For Mother’s Day, Noel totally spoiled me. He made me a puff Benedict because Instagram gave me an ad for it and I got really excited. (Is it sad that Instagram gives me ads for tater tots? Whether it is or not, it’s excellent target marketing because I love tater tots. No joke.) He was upset at how ugly his poached eggs looked, but it tasted great. For dinner, we had steak, fries, and salad. It was a wonderful food day for sure. Until next time!
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