I made this soup as plain vegetable soup yesterday for lunch. It was the combination of chicken stock and a bag of Trader Joe’s fresh cut up vegetables which includes broccoli, Napa cabbage, and bok choy. It also contains snow peas but I separated them out to use with our sesame tuna on Monday. To make the soup more of a dinner entree I cut up a couple of pieces of lamb and potatoes that were leftover from our grill night. Since it made quite a bit I offered a bowl to John who happily slurped it up after eating his usual Sunday omelet.
When we bought this boneless leg of lamb a couple of weeks ago John cut it into three pieces. We ate the first piece on the day we bought it and froze the other two. We decided to thaw and grill the two smaller pieces for the dinner tonight and for sandwiches and soup on Sunday. John did a great job grilling the lamb to medium rare. I microwaved the new potatoes and then cut them in half. I rubbed the cut sides with olive oil and salt and passed them on to John for some time on the grill to get a little char. Although you cannot really see it I added cabbage to the broccoli to stretch our veggies since all three of us were eating this dinner. Broccoli and cabbage are in the same family and the cabbage brought sweetness to the vegetable dish.
Sliced chicken breast with gravy, mashed potatoes, and asparagus
We stopped by Costco on the way home from doing errands and picked up a rotisserie chicken. Sarah took the chicken apart and I decided we would scrap the Afghani dal plan and make one of our comfort meals instead. We heated the chicken breast slices in some chicken gravy. The gravy also went great with mashed potatoes. I quickly sauteed asparagus spears to complete our dinner.
This was another delicious pasta dish by Sarah. She sauteed the onions and garlic in olive oil and then added the cooked linguine to the vegetables along with some pasta water. A dusting of feta cheese went on top. It was a simple dish but so delicious! The cabbage and onions sweeten up in the cooking and the feta is a nice salty counter punch. I look forward to her dishes every week.
For our enchiladas John sears the tortillas first so they have a charred flavor. Then I take the tortillas and fill them with shredded chicken, diced onions, shredded cheese, and green enchilada sauce. I nestle them in a 9 x 9 baking dish. The entire casserole is covered with more enchilada sauce and cheese and bakes in a 400F oven for around thirty minutes until they are warmed through and the cheese is melted.
I also made Mexican cole slaw. It is basically a combination of cabbage, mayo, sour cream, taco seasoning, charred corn, Rotel, and lime juice. The recipe calls for a jalapeño but I think the Rotel is spicy enough and also black beans which I omitted. Although the pile of cole slaw on my dish is not very visually appealing, it is definitely tasty.
Hamburgers, chips, salad, and corn on the cob (not shown)
We had a small family grill night for Memorial Day. John cooked the hamburgers expertly and also put some char on the corn. I made up a salad and we shared part of a bag of chips.
Roasted salmon with parsley mustard sauce, broccoli, and rice
Today we are getting those good omega-3 fatty acids from the salmon! Plus the broccoli provides 140% of our daily vitamin C. Hopefully these two super foods will offset the white rice which does not bring much to the good nutrition table. I am thinking of changing to brown rice which Sarah eats exclusively and the rice always smells so good when she cooks it using the oven method. Of course that means I have to plan ahead since it takes an hour in the oven.
John cooked the salmon for 9 minutes in a 400F oven and it came out perfectly. I made a parsley mustard sauce which went very nicely with all the components of our dinner.
Mustard Sauce
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon whole grain mustard (optional)
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar (or whatever vinegar you have)
The pasta of choice at our house is Barilla. Along with most other grocery items the price of a pound of pasta has gone up. We try to stock up whenever Barilla is on sale. This week it was selling at 3@$5 or $1.67 for a box. It is the lowest price for a couple of months and, even though too high, we bought some to keep in our pantry. Here’s a picture of Barilla on sale in Italy in 2018. Over two pounds for about 75 cents!
That’s 2.2 lbs. for $0.78
Anyway, we like Barilla’s whole grain penne and really enjoy a simple bowl of it with asparagus, onions, and garlic. The sauce is merely olive oil and pasta water. I like the way asparagus cut on the diagonal mimics the penne.