Since we are going out for a fancy Valentine‘s Day dinner on 2/15, I made an actual ❤️-day dinner that is like an uncomplicated warm hug! While John heated up some rotisserie chicken in packet chicken gravy, I boiled up a few red skinned potatoes and then smashed them with a tablespoon of butter. The broccoli was quickly steamed for a well-rounded quick and easy dinner.
We make this stew in stages. First we brown the turkey sausage that comes packaged already cooked through. Take that out of the pan and use the fat to cook the mushrooms. When the mushrooms are almost done add a mirepoix of onions, carrots, and celery diced small. Next add the garlic. When you can smell the garlic, maybe 20 seconds, add water, vegetable stock, or chicken stock. Then add the picked over and rinsed lentils. Cook that at a simmer for about 20 minutes and then add back in the turkey sausage and chunky pieces of carrot and celery. Another 10 or 15 minutes and it is done.
By adding the sausage, carrots, and celery in at the end, the stew has a more vibrant taste since all the components haven’t been cooked to death. Adjust the seasoning and maybe add a drizzle of olive oil and you have a really tasty lentil stew.
I could not think of anything inventive to do with my Breakfast for Dinner this week. I had bought English muffins as a treat this week so I thought I would put a fried egg on each half. I think I should have fried them one at a time but was trying to be a pro and ended up breaking the yolk on one of them. A quick but sloppy exit from the pan kept the broken one from becoming a hard framble, a portmanteau of a scrambled fried egg.
We are finally coming to the end of a box of breakfast veggie patties that do not taste like breakfast sausages, meat, or vegetables. Sometimes a good deal, as in a lot for cheap, turns out to be not a good idea.
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This is going to be a short cooking week. On Wednesday we are having a belated Valentine’s fancy dinner at a restaurant and then on Friday I am off for a long weekend to visit a friend. John says he doesn’t know what he will eat while I am gone but no doubt he will find something!
I think I have hit all the family favorites this week—Chana dal, shrimp bowl, pasta, chicken enchiladas, and finally, grilled lamb chops! While we rarely eat red meat, we will make an exception for lamb chops. Yum!
John cooked the chops on a hot grill outside. He also grilled the potato halves that I had microwaved until they were almost done. And it is just the very beginning of asparagus season with prices coming down and quality going up. I expect we will be eating more of this weird vegetable over the coming weeks.
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!
Omnivore 