Chicken and chickpea stew with mashed potatoes and broccoli
Friday night’s dinner was a lot like the Moroccan chicken we had last week except I cooked cubes of chicken in the broth instead of using rotisserie chicken. To be honest the chicken came out a bit dry probably due to leaving it in the broth too long.
I also served this dinner with a couple of sides, (leftover) mashed potatoes, and broccoli. Traditionally you would serve couscous with the chicken and chickpeas but I am a “waste not, want not” kind of person. The sauce from the chicken dish tasted good on the potatoes. Broccoli, the vegetable which is always seasonal somehow, was simply steamed.
Kind of a fancy no-occasion dinner for a Thursday night. Actually it was more like, here are a few items that need to be used so how can we put them together?
The scallops were nearing the end of their freezer life. The Russet potatoes’ eyes were growing, and the broccoli looked a little limp so John seared the scallops and I made mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, and a loose lemony tartar sauce to try to tie it all together. The sauce was fine with the scallops and broccoli but a little weird with the potatoes.
We ended up with a very nice dinner and enough mashed potatoes to use with our chicken and chickpeas instead of couscous tomorrow night. It may be another weird pairing!
Chickpeas with ditalini and kale is a vegan or vegetarian dish that makes you feel good about yourself for choosing such a healthy dinner. It is packed with vegetables, delicious, and pretty to look at with all its bright colors. I chopped up my vegetables early in the day so that when supper time rolled around the whole dish took less than a half hour to make. Since the recipe is for 4 we have plenty left over for at least 2 delicious lunches this week.
Happy Fourth of July to all that celebrate it! As is traditional we had a grilled entree. Hamburgers are my favorite meat to eat grilled and John does a spectacular job cooking them perfectly. On my part, I did a spectacular job assembling a Taylor Farms Steakhouse Salad (our favorite) and opening a bag of potato chips. Whew! Hard work for me today!
Since we had had a party with the whole family on Sunday when John grilled flank steak for tacos, tonight’s Fourth of July celebration was a little anti-climactic although heart-felt. I am including a picture of the Statue of Liberty that I took two weeks ago when we sailed into New York harbor.
We had some leftovers from Sunday’s graduation party and decided to use them in tonight’s dinner. The tacos are filled with pan-fried tilapia, shredded cabbage, diced onions, salsa, and Greek yogurt crema. The beans are a mix of pinto, black beans, spicy tomatoes, and cumin. The salad is a packaged Taylor Farms southwestern salad.
Normally I would never eat a crispy tortilla but we had these “stand-up” shells left over and they were surprisingly good. The calorie count was only 130 for two shells. Plus you heat them up for only a few seconds in the microwave which keeps them crispy but also pliable—no shattering taco when you take a bite!
Starting off with another hot day Monday but then cooling off for the rest of the week. It looks like we can go back to our regular cooking regime. This week features 3 vegan/vegetarian meals, 2 seafood, 1 chicken, and 1 beef.
The temperature outside got to 105 F today. Our house stays pretty cool since it’s built on a slab but we finally turned the a/c on around 6 PM. It was definitely not a day to be cooking anything so I made a couple of salads and served them with hummus and pita.
One thing with salads, though, they are really time consuming to make! Cooking some fish or a burger and steaming broccoli is way easier and quicker. John was my helper today squeezing lemons, picking mint leaves, and being generally helpful by reaching things that are on high shelves and doing a lot of clean-up.
The tabbouleh I make is very parsley intensive. I used three bunches along with quite a bit of mint, scallions, and a little garlic and tomatoes. There is only a quarter cup of bulgur wheat which is first soaked for 20 minutes. The dressing is basically just lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. I make it a few hours before dinner so that the bulgur wheat can soak up the dressing.
There are lots of recipes online for Israeli salad. Most of them have the vegetables finely chopped. I made my cucumber, tomato, and onion chunky. It is quicker to do. I seed the cucumber and get some excess water out of it by salting it and letting it sit for an hour in a colander. I also added some mint to the salad and dressed it with lemon juice and olive oil. A sprinkle of sumac as a garnish is nice.
So for the last two nights we have had two really tasty dinners without heating up the kitchen. When I mentioned that they both had been vegan the family seemed surprised. So delicious, filling, and good for us!
Too hot for cooking tonight! I made the gazpacho in the blender and the corn in the microwave. It was the first time this season for corn on the cob so it tasted especially good.
I have added my recipe for quick and easy gazpacho. I like to add a little fresh tomato but I would probably make it with just the canned if I did not have any on hand. And I whiz the entire tomatoes up seeds and skin included. I do take the seeds out of the cucumber but I leave the skin on. Salt is a personal thing. Just remember that the chilled gazpacho needs more salt than a soup served warm.
For corn on the cob in the microwave I husked three ears and then rinsed them off so there would be some steam when the cooked. I put them in a ziploc bag not entirely closed and microwaved on high for 6 minutes. I figured 2 minutes an ear.
The incredible heat that has been gripping the country has made its way to California so we are changing our lineup. Quick outdoor grilled burgers with a bagged salad and some chips for Thursday night and gazpacho and corn on the cob is on for Friday night. I haven’t figured out Saturday when it should be around 100F but maybe hummus and tabbouleh and something else Middle Eastern. All of us need to have a go-to list of dinners for the unusually hot weather this summer.
This is a new recipe for us. We started out with a standard tagine type recipe and then adapted to use less fat, rotisserie chicken, and fewer sweet elements. We also added half a preserved lemon because we a jar in the refrigerator. We served ours without the couscous and it was plenty filling. I think this could be easily made with boneless chicken breasts that were cut into chunks and cooked in the sauce at the end.
Omnivore 