Sautéed shrimp is simple to make. White rice is easily prepared. Stir fried bok choy only takes around five minutes to cook. What makes this simple, easy dish delectable? It is the sauce comprised of oyster sauce, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and a pinch of sugar. The first time I made the sauce just for the bok choy but now I prepare extra because it is equally tasty on the rice and shrimp!
Sautéed shrimp, white rice, and bok choy with oyster sauce
Just looking at this bowl of pasta makes me happy! Even though I only allowed myself two ounces of pasta and two ounces of meat, the small pieces of mushroom mimicked the meat, and the sauce was plentiful and delicious. All the credit goes to John who made the sauce while I was Zooming with my sisters who live in Florida. I gave him a few pointers on what to do and then he just ran with it. I wish I could eat this dinner at least three nights a week!
Fabulous pasta with a mushroom and meat sauce
I got this West African recipe by Alexa Weibel from the NYTimes Cooking site. It turned out to involve a lot of steps, a lot of pots and pans, and too spicy for me. First you marinate the chicken, then you grill it, and then you sort of braise it in a pot full of sautéed onions, peppers, chiles, garlic, and ginger. It wasn’t that it was blazingly hot but the spice from the Serrano chile and the ginger just obliterated my tasting anything else. John made some rice to go with it and I cooked some zucchini. John hopes we will try it a second time but there would need to be a lot of modifications for me to want to make it again.
Chicken yassa with rice and zucchini
First I made some soup, lentil and vegetables. Why? Mostly because I had collard greens that were on their last legs in the crisper. I made it my usual way—sauté onions and garlic, add the celery and carrots, then the picked over and rinsed lentils and some stock. While things are cooking I add the hardest vegetables first and end up with chiffonade of collard greens. I am madly chopping while the soup is burbling. All the chopping and cooking should be finished at the same time.
Lentil and vegetables soup
This soup will last for several lunches this week. It is so good and so healthy. But there is dinner to be made for Sunday night and it is an easy one, BFD, breakfast for dinner! Eggs! Snausage (veggie breakfast patty)! Pita! Salad!
Scrambled eggs with crumbled snausage in a pita with a green salad
Finally it is Monday and I need a little break from cooking. We heat up some of the basmati rice and Chana dal from last week, serve it on top of spinach, and cook some broccoli as a side. Easy, not much clean up, and very tasty!
Chana dal with basmati rice, spinach, and broccoli
Now I am ready for something new. West African chicken Yassa tomorrow!
We are trying a new recipe this week, spicy chicken yassa, a West African dish with lots of onion, lime, and spicy chiles. Otherwise, the menu has comfort favorites like pasta with meat sauce and seared scallops. I am excited to make this week’s menu!
It looks as though I was trying to match the split chickpeas to the rice! Good job, me! I guess what happened is that both recipes included turmeric. I made the split chickpeas (Chana dal) in the Instant Pot and the rice was a leftover from last week. I put a layer of spinach in the bowls first, then the rice and chickpeas, and finished with a garnish of lime juice and cilantro.
Chana dal with basmati twice and spinach
I usually make this pasta dish with penne because it mimics more closely the look of the asparagus. But when I went to the store in search of whole grain penne there was none to be found. In fact about the only shape they had was rotini. So rotini it is. This is really easy. Cut up the asparagus. Blanch it in the pasta cooking water. Cook the rotini to al dente. Put the asparagus and pasta together with a bit of oil and some reserved cooking water. Stir it around over heat to reduce the water and turn it into a light starchy dressing for the pasta. Finish with sea salt, freshly ground pepper, good olive oil and Parmesan cheese (omit for vegan.)
Whole grain rotini with asparagus
Our daughter made a panettone for me for Mother’s Day. She thought the rising time would take longer so we ended up with cake on Thursday. It was delicious! Happy early Mother’s Day to me!
Panettone
Panettone slice
I have some catching up to do! On Wednesday John sous vide a pork tenderloin. We have often sworn never to buy pork tenderloin again. Usually it turns out dry and tasteless. Using the immersion circulator set to 130F (a little too low, next time we will do 132F) kept the meat moist. Making a mustard sauce also helped. I made a giant tray full of roasted vegetable which I cooked in stages from hardest to most delicate in a 425F oven. One night I think I will just make a tray of vegetables and call it dinner!
Sous vide pork tenderloin, roasted vegetables, and mustard sauce
Happy Cinco de Mayo! To honor this quasi-holiday and because it is Tuesday we are having tacos! Since I am trying to do an every other day vegan/vegetarian dinner, we are preparing pinto bean tacos accompanied by cole slaw. My crema for the tacos and the coleslaw are not vegan but are vegetarian.
We put some salsa verde and cumin in the beans and also in the yogurt crema for additional flavor. The dressing for the cole slaw is a mixture of mayonnaise, Greek yogurt, Dijon mustard, a little vinegar, lime juice, cumin, and salt.
A great thing about tacos is that the can be made with beef, pork, chicken, fish, shrimp, or vegetarian. You can go a whole month of Taco Tuesdays without repeating your protein. And who doesn’t like tacos!?
Pinto bean tacos with coleslaw
Omnivore 