Omnivore

Lentils with turkey sausage and carrots over spinach. 10/13/23

Posted on October 14, 2023 by Beebamom

This combo of lentils, carrots, and turkey sausage is a “comfort food” dish for us. Other ingredients in our dish are onions, celery, garlic, and chicken stock. I like to serve the stew over whatever greens I have around, spinach, kale, or collard. It is easily adaptable depending on what you have in your pantry and fridge. You can make it vegan with non-meat crumbles and vegetable broth or add winter squash chunks. Changing the spices can take the lentils to different cuisines. Imagine an Indian or Mexican seasoning. In other words if you are stuck for something to make “lentils and …” is a nutritious, inexpensive, handy dish to make!

Posted in American, Easy, Kitchen tips, Legumes, Poultry, stew, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners | Tagged lentils, turkey sausage | Leave a comment

Tilapia with mustard sauce, baked potato, broccoli. 10/12/23

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Beebamom

Oven roasted tilapia, half microwaved/baked potato, broccoli

Another easy fish dish, it is amazing how quickly you can cook fish. The tilapia took 8 minutes in a 400F. After microwaving the potato until done, we popped it in the oven to pick up some browning. The fish was done so quickly that the potato did not get much browning. The mustard sauce was a great topping for the fish and potato and a little butter on the broccoli rounded out the dish.

Posted in American, Easy, Fish, pescatarian, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners | Tagged tilapia | Leave a comment

Chicken enchiladas, beans and corn. 10/11/23

Posted on October 12, 2023 by Beebamom

Chicken enchiladas with black beans and corn

A trip to Costco today equals a rotisserie chicken equals chicken enchiladas. I made mention of chicken tostadas or chicken fajitas but both John and our daughter were voting enchilada. So even though we had chicken enchiladas 10 days ago we are having this dinner again!

No real complaints from me. The enchiladas are easy enough to make. Warm the tortillas until they are pliable, hold them in the palm of your hand, lay in shredded chicken, onions, cheese, and salsa verde, roll them up and nestle the enchiladas close together in a baking dish with a layer of salsa verde on the bottom, then put a coating of salsa verde and cheese on top.

Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake in a 350F oven for 30 minutes then increase the temperature to 425F and finish cooking uncovered for about 8 minutes until the top is browned and the cheese is melted. Watch to make sure they don’t burn!

I made a side of black beans, onions, corn, and a little salsa verde seasoned with salt, garlic powder, cumin, and chipotle powder. It was a little spicy but good.

Posted in American, Easy, Methods, Mexican, Poultry, Southwest U.S., Vegetables, Weeknight dinners | Tagged chicken, tortillas | Leave a comment

Grilled swordfish, potatoes, broccoli

Posted on October 11, 2023 by Beebamom

This was John’s first try at grilling swordfish and it came out perfectly! Whole Foods was having a sale so we thought we would give it a try. It only took about 4 minutes per side so this was a very quick dinner.

I made some steamed Yukon gold potatoes and broccoli as sides. A squeeze of lemon finished off our plates.

Posted in American, Easy, Fish, pescatarian, Uncategorized, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners | Tagged swordfish | Leave a comment

Grilled lamb chops, sweet potato, asparagus 10/9/23

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Beebamom

Grilled lamb chops, sweet, potato and asparagus

This is a pretty quick to make dinner. The whole thing took about 1/2 hour. And that it included heating up the grill for 15 minutes! While John was waiting for the grill to heat up I prepped the asparagus and microwaved the sweet potato which would spend time very briefly on the grill.

Once the lamb chops went on the grill John cooked them about 10 minutes rotating them so all sides got cooked evenly. He grilled the sweet potato halves to get a char on the surface. During this time I cooked the asparagus in a little water and added a pat of butter after they drained. When the lamb was done it rested briefly while we assembled our plates with sweet potato and asparagus.

The dinner was delicious!! It was a bit too much for me and I had a lamb chop and part of the sweet potato left over for John’s lunch tomorrow. Lamb is definitely our favorite red meat.

Posted in American, Easy, Grilling, Lamb, Methods, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners | Tagged lamb chops | 1 Comment

Southwestern Bowl. 10/8/23

Posted on October 9, 2023 by Beebamom

Tonight I made a new egg dish similar to my scrambled egg nachos. I broke up some tortilla chips into bite-sized pieces for the base.This was followed by scrambled eggs, corn, and beans. I melted two ultra thin slices of cheese over the top and then garnished the dish with sliced green onions and a dollop of light sour cream.

I needed to use more seasoning on the corn and beans, maybe cumin and chipotle powder. On the whole it was very filling and almost like a layered Southwestern dip with the chips already included!

Posted in American, Easy, Eggs, Legumes, Methods, Mexican, Southwest U.S., Vegetables, Weeknight dinners | Tagged Eggs | Leave a comment

Weekly Menu. October 9 – 15, 2023

Posted on October 8, 2023 by Beebamom

Because John, our son, and I will not be home for Thanksgiving week we have moved our celebration closer to Canadian Thanksgiving. And because the grandchildren do not like traditional Thanksgiving food we are having a taco bar at our son’s house. He plans on having steak, shrimp, and chicken to stuff in our tacos. Along with this we will have some hors d’oeuvres, a bean dish, various salsas, and dessert. So it’s an American tradition, in a Canadian timeframe, serving Mexican food. Or North American Thanksgiving!

Posted in Weekly menu | Leave a comment

Buffalo Chicken Wings and Salad. 10/7/23

Posted on October 8, 2023 by Beebamom

Now they we have bought a large bag of Foster Farms Take-Out Buffalo chicken wings to keep in the freezer we have a go-to dinner whenever we do not feel like cooking. I think it is probably a good idea to have a backup dinner since it keeps from going the more expensive and fattening out-to-dinner or takeout route.

These chicken wings are quite good, gluten-free, come with a spicy sauce, and cook in the oven in about 25 minutes. I also made a southwest salad to go with the wings.

Posted in American, Easy, Poultry, Salad, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners | Tagged chicken | Leave a comment

Polenta with meaty spaghetti sauce. 10/6/23

Posted on October 7, 2023 by Beebamom

John made a somewhat thicker polenta for this dish which was paired with my homemade spaghetti meat sauce. I was craving an Italian dish and I am unable to process gluten anymore. This seemed like a good thing to try. John liked it a bunch but for me the sauce overwhelmed the taste of the polenta and it was all one texture.

My solution with my second helping was to have the sauce with tortilla chips that were broken into smaller pieces. The chips could stand up to the sauce taste-wise and did not lose their texture if you merely put them on top and ate a bit of the sauce with the chip piece. It wasn’t ideal but I liked it better than the polenta/sauce dinner. After all, polenta and tortilla chips are in the same family!

Posted in American, Beef, Easy, Italian, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners | Tagged meat sauce, polenta | 2 Comments

Tuna salad, salad. 10/8/23

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Beebamom

Today it turned stupidly hot, in the 90s. C’mon October! The rest of the country is cooling down but here on the West Coast we are going in the opposite direction for the next two or three days. All this complaining is an explanation as to why I made tuna salad and plopped it on top of a big bowl of salad. I refuse to run the AC this late in the year!

The salad is merely a kit salad from Taylor Farms. Steakhouse Wedge is our favorite. I added some walnut pieces for texture. My tuna salad consisted of solid white albacore packed in water, light mayo, diced celery, capers, sweet relish, and chopped parsley. Usually I make it half mayo and half plain Greek yogurt but since John was eating it I went the mayo only route. He made himself a sandwich for sandwich and salad dinner and I am sure he put even more mayonnaise on the bread.

Posted in American, Easy, Fish, Salad, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners | Tagged tuna | Leave a comment