This quick and easy dinner seems good enough for company. The sauce for the shrimp is bright and tangy due to a little lemon juice, white wine, parsley, and capers.
You can find the recipe on the earlier post of mine.
Look at that vibrant bowl of dinner! It makes me feel healthier just looking at it! It does involve some chopping but it is really simple to make. Here’s the recipe:
Chickpeas with ditalini and kale
Ingredients
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped (optional)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 sprigs thyme (or herb of your choice)
2 cups vegetable broth
2 cups water
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 can petite diced tomatoes and chiles with liquid (like Rotel)
Parmesan rind (optional)
½ cup ditalini
Big handful of kale or any type greens
Salt and black pepper
Garnish with a drizzle of olive oil and parmesan cheese (optional)
In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the carrots, celery, and onion. Cook until tender and the onion is translucent.
Add the garlic and herb then cook until the garlic is fragrant. Pour in the broth, water, and the can of spicy tomatoes with their liquid. Add optional parmesan rind.
Once the mixture is boiling, add the chickpeas and ditalini. Reduce to a simmer and cover with a lid. Simmer 10 minutes, or until the ditalini is tender. Uncover and stir in the greens and optional zucchini, letting them simmer until incorporated.
Your mixture will be quite stew-like. If you want the mixture to be more soupy, add some additional water. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish the bowls with a drizzle of olive oil and optional parmesan cheese..
This is such a simple meal to make. John does the grilling and I take care of the potato and broccoli. Before the potato can go on the grill I microwave it until it is almost cooked through. The grilling takes care of any not quite cooked parts. The broccoli is steamed with a little butter added at the end of cooking. The whole meal takes less than 30 minutes to make!
Thursday is officially Sarah’s night to cook. She defrosted the second half of the sauce she made last week and served it over medium pasta shells. It was delicious and we all indulged in an extra ounce of pasta.
Sometimes I do not feel like making and eating what I planned. In these cases it’s good to have back-up supplies. I had buffalo chicken wings in the freezer which appealed to me and left over tabbouleh and roasted golden beets from yesterday. Voila! A perfectly good easy dinner!
I was looking around through my past meals for a vegan/vegetarian meal that we had not eaten for a while. Since pita, hummus, and sides are usually something I make in the summer I knew it would be different from our usual winter fare. So I bought a container of hummus and a bag of pita and the ingredients for the beets and tabbouleh. The tabbouleh recipe I use is from NYTimes Cooking and is very parsley centric. The Times has graciously allowed for some recipes to be shared so here’s the link.
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1012585-tabbouleh?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share
We also found golden beets at the grocery store. I much prefer them over the red ones. Last night while I was making the chicken enchiladas in the oven I also roasted the beets. After they are tender you can wipe off the skin with a paper towel. I served them with a lemony vinaigrette and crumbled feta. (Omit or substitute a non-dairy cheese for a vegan dinner.)
August in February was a success! And we didn’t have to turn on the A/C!
While we were away Sarah bought a Costco rotisserie chicken and put the two breasts in the freezer. With one of them I made the chicken enchiladas and a chicken with rice vegetable soup. The other one I am saving for chicken lo mein later this week and maybe classic chicken at the beginning of next week. I was afraid it would be difficult to shred since it was not still warm from the store but the defrosted chicken breast shred with no problem.Along with the chicken I stuffed each enchilada with salsa verde, cheese, and onion. I nestled the 12 enchiladas in a 9 x 9 baking dish and we cooked them in a 400F oven for 25 minutes. I also made some spicy black beans (a drained and rinsed can of black beans, a can of Rotel, and a sprinkling of salt and cumin.) The kale was added to the plate for some greenery.
First of all Happy George Washington’s Birthday because I am old enough to remember that in February we used to celebrate the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington separately and not just a lackluster amalgamation of all the presidents, the good, the mediocre, the bad, and the really bad. Since I am not a dessert maker I did not celebrate with a cherry pie (do kids even know this myth about young George and the chopping down of the cherry tree and his not being able to lie to his father?) Instead we had a dinner of grilled hamburgers and salad. Yum!
We have been in Italy for the past week celebrating having a credit with United Airlines that had to be used. We stayed in Florence the whole time where there are plenty of things to see and you do not need the hassle of a rental car to see them. We had a little self-catering apartment that we figured we could make small meals in and keep the dining out to once a day. So we made our breakfast and dinner in the apartment and went out to lunch each day. So breakfast was usually toast and coffee and tea plus the occasional scrambled eggs. Dinner was often wonderful Italian cold cuts, cheese, and chopped chicken livers which is a Florentine special treat.
I took some pictures of our lunches, of course. So here they are—
I know this is not dining lightly but given the fact that it was just one meal out each day and that we walked everywhere neither John or I gained any weight. What a total win!
Omnivore 