Last Week’s Dish Details – 2/25/21

Welcome to our first ever, “Last Week’s Dish Details!” We aren’t one of those blogs that pumps out posts on a regular basis and we definitely tend to be inspired seasonally. (Can you tell this blog is just a hobby?) We do cook food for ourselves every day though and most of it is pretty good. We asked on Instagram if followers were interested in a weekly recap of some of the things we ate to help get your own meal planning juices flowing. The response was an overwhelming, yes, so we’re going to give it a shot and see how it goes.

Several years ago, I wrote a post about how I meal plan. While a few things have changed (the kids now participate a bit in the process and I’m more flexible about my grocery shopping days), for the most part that is still how we plan and execute meals at our house. There are some days when we make every last item from scratch and other days where we use a lot of canned or prepackaged items. I used to think that was akin to a sin, but you know sometimes you just don’t have the time or energy to make everything from scratch and that is okay. Now, on to the highlights of what we dished up this last week:

Crunchy Roll Bowls

These Crunchy Roll Bowls have become an unexpected favorite at our house. Completely meatless and brimming with vegetables it’s a pretty healthy meal, but oh, so tasty. The spicy mayo is to die for and there is just something about those crispy onions that I love. Letting everyone choose their own toppings really cuts down on whining and overall satisfaction.

Hummus and Smoothies

This was a last minute meal plan change. Noel and I ran 11 miles after which we were famished and got sandwiches and fries for a takeout picnic lunch. By the time dinner rolled around, we wanted something light, so we whipped up some hummus in the food processor and a smoothie in the blender. The muffuletta was a Costco find and the smoothies were also made from a Costco blend of fruit.

Paneer Tikka Masala

I found this paneer at Costco. I’ve tried making my own in the past, but buying it was definitely easier. We made a pretty tasty Saag a few weeks ago and used the rest of it for this Paneer Tikka Masala. I used this recipe for marinading and roasting the cheese and bell peppers and this recipe for the sauce. We use a naan bread recipe from Artisan Flatbread and Pizza in Five Minutes a Day that is really tasty and pretty easy to make. (On days when we just can’t fit in making naan from scratch, these naan are pretty tasty. Costco often has them or I can find them in the bakery section of our Kroger store.) We added some roasted asparagus to round the meal out.

Chia Pudding and Granola

I’ll feature one breakfast in this post. This is one of my favorite breakfasts. About once a month, I’ll make up a batch of coconut chia pudding and a batch of our granola. Then for the next week, I’ll eat this for breakfast almost everyday. A couple of spoonfuls of chia pudding + granola + a bit of fruit or jam + lemon curd = yum! (Mathematically proven, can’t argue with that.)

Corn and Zucchini Enchiladas

These corn and zucchini enchiladas were met with LOTS of whining, but then the kids ate them mostly without complaint. One of our children does not like cheese (still not sure how this happened in our family), so that is why there is a foil divider between a few of the enchiladas and the rest of them. We used green enchilada sauce instead of the salsa verde listed in the recipe. They were quite delicious and made good leftovers.

Grilled Chicken and Salad with Jalapeno Dressing

We are omnivores at our house, but do try to pull back on meat when we can. I guess I really pulled back on meat this week because by the time we rolled around to this meal the kids were asking me if we were ever going to eat chicken again – ha, ha. This meal featured: grilled chicken thighs, rice pilaf from a packet, charred frozen corn, salad with a jalapeno dressing, and strawberry jello. Apparently, I have never made the kids jello and they’ve been feeling quite deprived, so I bought a packet of jello to help their dreams come true.

Beyond Burgers, Fries, Salad, and Mango

The last meal I’ll share is “burger” night. We eat Beyond Burgers fairly regularly. (Lately I’ve been getting them at Costco, but our Kroger store also sells them.) Noel and I topped ours with grilled mushrooms and swiss cheese. The fries were curly fries from the frozen food section of the grocery store. We dipped them in “which” sauce leftover from our takeout lunch earlier in the week. (Waste not, want not!) We also served this with from leftover salad from the day before and a delightfully ripe mango.

Dessert

We usually try to hold ourselves to one baked good per week (notice I said one baked good, not dessert), but this week we made two. We made donettes for a movie night and then brown butter chocolate chips cookies when we took dinner to some friends. Both recipes are from the Bravetart cookbook which I am loving.

That wraps up this installment of Last Week’s Dish Details. If you have any questions, comments, recipe requests, etc drop them in the comments.