Easy dinner tonight. John roasted the tilapia in a 400F oven for 8 minutes. The rice was left over from the oven baked rice I made on Tuesday. I cut up all the broccoli I had and cooked it in a little water for 4 minutes. I thought I would have some left for a lunchtime soup. Silly me! We ate it all. Mustard sauce is a combo of yellow, whole grain, and Dijon mustards with a little parsley, onion, and water to thin it out. If it is too mustard-y add a bit of some sort of sweetener.
There is nothing difficult about this dinner except for the fact that it takes a lot of assembly. John chopped up an onion and made the beans. The beans are simply a drained, rinsed can of black beans and a can of Rotel heated up. He put in a little salt and some cumin as well.
I used rotisserie chicken meat and I shredded about 1 lb. of it for the three of us. We heated the tortillas in a low oven until they were pliable and stuffed each one with chicken, onions, shredded cheese, and salsa verde. I made 12 enchiladas and nestled them in a 9×13 baking dish with a layer of the jarred salsa verde in the bottom. I put the rest of the salsa verde and cheese on top.
The enchiladas were baked in a 350F oven for 40 minutes. At that point the sauce is bubbly, the cheese is melted, and the enchiladas are cooked through. Along with the Asian bowls we make, enchiladas and tacos always get rave reviews at our house.
Our pasta meal on Wednesday was merely fettuccine and spiralized zucchini (zoodles) with mushrooms, onions, and garlic. The sauce consisted of olive oil and pasta water.
We make three types of bowls, salmon, tofu, and shrimp. We all have our favorite. I think I am going to move my favorite up from 2 to 1, shrimp bowl!
Here is the base recipe I start from –
As usual I use less oil and I use sweetener instead of sugar. So to adapt this recipe, use your own rice, make double the recipe of sauce, and garnish with what makes you happy.
Ours turned out super good! I think I will make it again with tofu!
Chana dal is dried split chickpeas. Of all the dals this is my favorite. I found my base recipe at https://pipingpotcurry.com/instant-pot-chana-dal/. Of course we changed it a bit! We use a can of Serrano Rotel for the tomato component. The spicy canned tomatoes give it a nice zing.
While John had his portion over white rice, I used cauliflower rice. We used a mix of regular chopped kale and lacinato kale underneath and diced the stems adding them to the pot. Fifteen minutes on high pressure is all it takes to make this great one pot meal. We always make a double recipe so we have plenty of leftovers for lunches!
If you read this blog you will know that every Sunday John makes himself an omelet. I, on the other hand, have various dishes which incorporate eggs. This Sunday I made not quite a cheese omelet which was actually eggs scrambled with kale, mushrooms, scallions and cheese. When it got close to done a smooshed it into a rectangular shape mimicking an omelet somewhat. I like my eggs softer than an omelet allows so I think this is as close as I will ever get to an actual omelet.
White chicken chili is a recipe I got from the Neely’s of Food Network. You might like to make their chili because it turns out really tasty. We used a Fresno chile instead of a jalapeño, crushed in a handful of tortilla chips to help make it thicker, and cooked it uncovered a bit longer to help it thicken further. Otherwise it was pretty much as the recipe was written.
John ate our paltry leftovers for lunch today. I was jealous.
John tried a new technique for cooking the salmon that we saw on America’s Test Kitchen last week. He pre-heated a sheet pan in the oven set to 500F. When the oven reached temperature he took the pan out, sprayed it with olive oil spray, and laid the seasoned salmon on skin side down. While he was doing this I lowered the temperature to 275F. Then the salmon went back in the oven and cooked for 7 minutes. Our fish was only about 3/4 inch thick so we had to adjust the time for a shorter roasting time than the recipe suggested.
We were happy with the way the salmon came out. There was very little albumin seeping out and the clean up was easy since we had lined the sheet pan with aluminum foil.
John had made some rice earlier and I added cauliflower rice to mine so that my portion seemed larger. I heated the rice mix in the microwave and added some sliced green onions. The green beans were cooked in a little water in a pan and were finished with a pat of butter.
The mustard sauce really tied the whole dish together. It is simple to make. Mix one tablespoon each of Dijon mustard, whole grain mustard, and yellow mustard with one tablespoon of lemon juice, one table spoon of minced onion, one tablespoon of olive oil, and one to two tablespoons of water to thin it out. Easy-peasy. This is also a great sauce to serve with sheet pan turkey sausage and vegetables.
You could make this pasta dish with any shape you like. I do think it works better with shapes rather than strands. I chopped up all the vegetables ahead of time so the cooking went really quickly.
Using a large enough pan to hold the finished pasta and vegetables I started by sautéing the mushrooms in a little olive oil, then added 1/2 chopped onion, 2 sliced garlic cloves, and the stems of asparagus. Just before adding the drained pasta, I put in the zucchini and asparagus tips. I cooked the pasta together with the vegetables adding a half cup of pasta water and a pat of butter.
My portion was 3 ounces of pasta and a lot of vegetables. I could not finish my bowl so John got a bonus portion!
Omnivore 