For Thursday night’s dinner I shredded some rotisserie chicken and rolled it in a corn tortilla along with chopped onion, some shredded cheese, cilantro, and jarred salsa verde. I put 12 of these in a 9×13 dish with some salsa verde on the bottom and over the top. The dish went into the oven for 35 minutes at 350F.
For the slaw I took a package of pre-shredded cabbage slaw and mixed it with a dressing of light mayo, salsa, cumin, chipotle powder, and cumin seeds.
Today I was extra hungry so I decided that a two course dinner would help me control the munchies. As much as I frequently say that I do not like making salads, I do enjoy eating them. A salad before my bowl of pasta took the edge off my hunger and allowed me to eat the pesto pasta at a more mindful pace.
Romaine and cabbage salad with mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, scallions, and pepperoncini
A few months ago before my basil turned into frost-bitten slime I made pesto. I froze little blocks of the pesto in a 1/4 cup ice tray. They now reside in my freezer in a plastic bag ready and waiting for a quick pasta dinner. After our Carba-nada fusilli was cooked and drained I plopped a defrosted one in and stirred it around in the hot pasta with a little pasta water. It’s not much pesto for two portions of fusilli but all those little pasta ridges catch and hold onto the least little bit floating by. I ate it slowly and savored every bite!
Fusilli with pesto and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese
Farro grain bowl with sheet pan Brussels sprouts and eggplant, sliced cherry tomatoes, edamame and a yogurt sauce
I made the farro in the same way as I make brown rice, in the oven. Set the oven to 375F. In a sprayed 9X9 baking dish add 1.5 cups of rinsed farro, 1 tsp. of table salt, and 2 1/3 cups of hot/boiling water. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and cook for an hour. Take the farro (or brown rice) out, fluff it with a fork, and recover for 5 minutes. Perfect every time.
Then I hiked the oven temperature up to 425 and cooked the sprouts and eggplant that I had cut up and tossed in olive oil and salt. They were nicely browned and done in 30 minutes.
I put 2/3 cup of farro in a bowl, took a healthy portion of the roasted vegetables, and added some sliced cherry tomatoes and edamame. I wish I could tell you more about the sauce but I kept adding stuff until it tasted okay – Greek yogurt, lemon juice, peanut butter powder, sesame oil, garlic, and salt. Also a little water to thin it out. I was trying to avoid using tahini but if you don’t mind the calories then use tahini and keep the dish vegan.
The family declared the grain bowl a success and suggested that we make it again. That’s the highest praise a dish can get.
This is my super comforting comfort meal. Not that I need comforting but eating it feels like a big hug. Every Monday when the kids were little we always had “chicken Monday” so there are a lot of fond memories associated with it.
It is very easy to make. The chicken breast comes from a rotisserie chicken and is warmed up in a packet of McCormick’s chicken gravy. The broccoli is steamed and I make the rutabaga in the Instant Pot on high pressure for 15 minutes with a 10 minute cool down. A rutabaga is a gnarly beast and difficult to peel and cut up. John offered to do the hard work on it so all I needed to do was mash it up with a little butter.
Pigeon peas (Toor dal) over kale and white rice/cauliflower rice combo
A while ago John and I went to the Indian grocery and bought big bags of Chana dal and Toor dal. Chana dal is dried split chickpeas and Toor dal is dried pigeon peas. We have had a lot of success making delicious Chana dal in our Instant Pot but less success with the Toor dal.
In hopes that I had found a recipe which we would like better, we used the Toor dal again on Sunday. To begin with our recipe, which came from pipingpotcurry.com, was very bland and soupy. The three to one ratio was just to much liquid for the pigeon peas. So after cooking it on high pressure for 5 minutes with a 5 minute cool down before releasing the pressure, we added another 2/3 cup of the pigeon peas and a can of Rotel original to spice it up. Plus quite a bit of salt.
After recooking the whole thing again and letting it sit for a while it was much, much better. The pigeon peas will never be as tasty as the Chana dal but with our additions and a squirt of sriracha we have concocted a dish which we can make again and use up our giant bag of Toor dal.
I went quite basic this week with my BFD consisting of two soft scrambled eggs, a veggie patty and a small salad. I usually make this on Sunday but we had been out car shopping (this is not a good time for car shopping due to supply chain problems and inflated prices but our lease is expiring), and ended up eating lunch around 4PM. Something light around 7:30 was all I could manage. I will tackle the Toor dal we were supposed to be eating tomorrow morning for dinner Sunday night.
Good for lunch, good for dinner, good for snack, null soup! I made a big pot of null soup the other day for times when I am too tired to make something nutritious and might slide into choices I wish I had not made. Why “null” soup? I named it that because it is a WW zero personal points meal in a bowl.
To make null soup go in your vegetables drawer in the refrigerator and pull out all the non-starchy vegetables you have. I believe my soup has mushrooms, onions, carrots, celery, broccolini, cabbage, and kale. First I sauté the mushrooms and onions in a little olive oil spray. Then I add chicken or vegetable broth. Then I chop and add the rest of the vegetables according to hardness. First the carrots, then celery, etc. until I add the kale last. I had some thyme twigs that I dropped in and finally some chicken breast meat from a rotisserie chicken. The whole thing takes only about 20 minutes.
Since I like a lot to eat in a serving I divided my pot into two containers but if you like your soup more brothy you could divide it into smaller portions and just add more broth when you reheat it. Make enough for several days and freeze it if you like. Null soup, nutritious, tasty, and an aid in “dining lite.”
Our daughter loves this dinner and asks for it at least once every two weeks. I got the original recipe from NYTimes Cooking but adapted it to makes it way less complicated and time consuming. Our recipe is make some rice, chop up, slice, or empty out of a bag vegetables, brine and cook the salmon ala an American Test Kitchen method, and make the sauce that is in the NYT recipe.
INGREDIENTS
1.5 lbs. salmon fillet (in 4 pieces
2 tablespoons table salt for brining
1 quart water for brining
Cooked rice
Bag of cabbage slaw\
Cucumber
1 large or 2 small avocados
Furikake or sesame seeds for sprinkling
FOR THE SAUCE
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
3 tablespoons white vinegar
2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
1 scallion coarsely chopped
2 inch piece ginger, minced
1/4 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
THE METHOD
Make rice.
In one quart of water dissolve 2 tablespoons of salt and allow the fish to brine for 20 minutes. This will help to keep the albumin from rising to the surface. Then sprinkle coarse salt in your frying pan. Place the fish skin side down in the cold pan and turn the flame or element on low. Cook on low for 20 minutes and then flip and cook for an additional two minutes. Most importantly, don’t overcook!
Salmon on salt in frying pan
Prepare the vegetables. Thinly slice the cucumber. Using a mandolin is an excellent tool for this. Put the cabbage slaw in a serving bowl. Take the pit out of the avocado and slice.
Vegetables
Combine all the sauce ingredients. It will not be emulsified. The sauce is really yummy and you might consider making a double recipe of it. That is what I do.
Put some rice down in a shallow bowl. Add the salmon, then vegetables, and top with sauce. Sprinkle with furikake or sesame seeds
Fettuccine with onions, garlic, mushrooms, and kale
I am so loving this carba-nada pasta. We have been eating the fusilli and have now tried the fettuccine. It cooks in about three minutes and you can have quite a bit since it has lower calories and carbs. In fact I considered not eating my whole bowlful because I was full. (I did, however, power through and eat the whole thing! Will I never learn!?)
I have recently been buying the shredded kale from Trader Joe’s. I really like it in salads, soups, and main dishes. The mouthfuls are smaller than with regular prepackaged kale and there are almost no annoying stems.
For WW folks, you can have 3 ounces for 4 PP. That is a far cry from the 9 PP that regular pasta would cost. Plus it tastes good! Today I made my null soup for lunch which is all vegetables and chicken breast meat in chicken stock. I added 1 ounce of the fettuccine which really bulked up the soup and added only 1PP which was negated by the ton of vegetables. Another win!
Omnivore 