This is the first time I have made this recipe and I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Further down the page is the recipe I started with. I changed the soba noodles to 6 oz. of fettuccine and one medium zucchini spiralized. I made the full amount of sauce because we love sauce but just the amount of vegetables for two people. The recipe calls for PB2 which is peanut butter powder. Peanut butter powder has much fewer calories than using full fat peanut butter. So by reducing the fat calories and having lots of vegetables by using zoodles we ended up with a healthy dish.
Since this is a photo of the recipe the links are not live.
Apparently I forgot to post yesterday so today is a two-fer.
Rotisserie chicken and butternut squash/potato mash with gravy and broccoli
My classic chicken dinner is always served with butternut squash, rutabaga, or potato mash. Sometimes, like Monday night, it is a combination because I don’t have enough of any one thing. I cooked the butternut squash and potatoes in the Instant Pot for 15 minutes and they always come out totally mashable. They are so tender that I can mash them with a fork easily.
The chicken comes from a Costco rotisserie chicken. We have decided it is such a good deal ($4.99!) that we will always buy one when we go to Costco. Once home I take the chicken apart for use during the next few days and I even make chicken stock out of the carcass. Yum, chicken vegetable soup! I think I will have it for lunch today.
Broccoli is always the vegetable of choice for Classic Chicken Dinner. We also made gravy from a packet of chicken gravy mix by McCormack.
Open-faced tilapia sandwich with tartar sauce and a salad
John and I enjoy the mild taste of tilapia for our open-faced sandwich. While John cooks the fish I make a tartar sauce from mayo, relish, capers, yellow mustard, grated onion, a squeeze of lemon, and a squirt of sriracha. The bread component is an Artesano sausage roll that I toasted. For salad tonight I used a Taylor Farms pre-packaged chopped steakhouse wedge that comes with croutons, bacon bits, and a blue cheese dressing. Easy, tasty dinner!
This is my iconic Breakfast for Dinner plate. No bells and whistles, it is just straightforward eggs, toast and a plant-based sausage patty. Along with a hot cup of tea this dinner is the perfect easy meal to end my week.
This week is abbreviated by a little vacation. John and I will be heading to Utah and taking our son on his birthday trip. There is nothing he likes better than to spend a week playing tennis and golf. One thing that he and I have always done together is to plan, shop for, and cook meals. He is a pretty good cook although a little on the messy side. Having a rental where he can cook and I do not have to stress over the mess is ideal!
I bought a Costco rotisserie chicken today and took all the meal off for use in our roast chicken dinner on Monday and for lunches during the week. I have even made stock with the carcass. On Wednesday I am hoping we will follow through and make the noodles and zoodles with peanut sauce that we were supposed to have done last week.
I will probably be a little less DiningLite on vacation but I will try to post whatever reasonable meals we make.
The plan originally was to make chicken enchiladas. I thought I had two packs of rotisserie chicken in the freezer but I did not. While pulling out everything in the freezer looking for the chicken we came across two frozen turkey thighs which must have been frozen a long time ago. We defrosted them in the microwave, roasted them in the oven, and finally I shredded the meat so we could make turkey enchiladas! It was more work than I had bargained for but the turkey enchiladas turned out pretty tasty.
I warmed corn tortillas in the oven and then filled each tortilla with a combination of pulled turkey meat, diced onion, shredded cheese, and salsa verde. In a 350F oven I baked my twelve tortillas in a 9×13 dish that had a layer of salsa verde in the bottom, followed by the tortillas, and then more salsa verde, the onions that were left, and some cheese. After 30 minutes they were heated through with the cheese melted on top.
The spicy beans were simply a combination of pinto and black beans plus a can of Rotel. I tried a new version of Rotel that is made with Serrano chiles instead of jalapeños. We all appreciated the extra spice.
Between the three of us we ate eight of the enchiladas and most of the beans. I figure that the four remaining enchiladas will make a nice lunch for John and our daughter or a dinner for John and me if I get tired of cooking in the coming week!
On our menu this week we were supposed to be having noodles and zoodles with peanut sauce. The peanut sauce dish was just more trouble than I felt like going to so I switched the sauce to the spicy tomato sauce that I had made earlier in the week. I made zucchini spirals (zoodles) with my handy Vegetti and the zoodles really bulked up our servings of fettucine.
It was nice to have a fairly simple dinner. I will make the peanut sauce some other time.
When I first saw this recipe I thought yes, I would like to make clam chowder but no, I cannot use three cups of heavy cream! So I went about trying to lighten it up. First I jettisoned the guanciale, upped the potatoes a bit, and cut out the three cups of heavy cream. Sometimes I make it with 2tablespoons of heavy cream but last night I used a cup of half and half. I think I like it better with the heavy cream. You can use however much your own personal taste and requirements allow. Using part of the potatoes as russet potatoes instead of all waxy potatoes gives it a creamier texture as well. In the recipe the soup is served over a big slab of bread. We opted for oyster crackers instead.
The salad was simply a bagged product. It said it had a Dijon dressing. It was so sweet that we ended up putting a lot more mustard in. I have noticed that most of the pre-packaged salads come with really sweet dressings. Certainly it would be easier for people to add more sweetness if they wanted it than find ways to make the dressings less sweet. (This is a pet peeve of mine!)
I made a spaghetti sauce that started with sautéed mushrooms, onions, and garlic and added two tablespoons of tomato paste, a tablespoon of dried oregano, and a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes. Since arrabiata means “angry” in Italian my heat came from a teaspoon of red pepper flakes, 5 shakes of Tabasco, and 2 squirts of sriracha. I let that simmer for about 45 minutes, tasted it, and corrected the salt level. Before the pasta was cooked I put half of my sauce in a container for another day.
John cooked the pasta and saved a cup of the pasta water. I put the drained fusilli into the sauce and cooked it together for a few minutes, adding in pasta water to give the dish the right consistency. I took shredded raw kale and placed a big handful in the bottom of our bowls and then ladled the saucy pasta on top. A sprinkling of Parmesan finished the dish. (Omit Parmesan for a vegan preparation.)
I love a big bowl of pasta! Using a bed of kale makes the dinner really filling without adding a bunch of calories.
Tilapia on a small sub roll with spicy tartar sauce and coleslaw
Tonight’s simple dinner satisfied a craving for a sub. John cooked the fish quickly in a pan on the stovetop. I toasted the rolls under the broiler. I also made the coleslaw and some tartar sauce. The tartar sauce is basically mayonnaise, cider vinegar, yellow mustard, and capers. I added a shake of onion and garlic powders and a squirt of sriracha for spice.
The only problem with this dinner was that once I had eaten my sub I definitely wanted another one!
Salmon over rice with cabbage, cucumber, avocado, and edamame
This is a family favorite but to be honest I am getting tired of all these bowls. I am sure that especially our daughter is not going to be happy about that! Last night all I could think of is how much I would have preferred the salmon with a mustard sauce. Oh, well, I will probably get out-voted.
I served my salmon over a riced cauliflower and white rice base. Around the salmon I have shredded cabbage, sliced cucumber, edamame, and avocado. I am also feeling a little annoyed about the avocado which had a big brown spot and was not as bright green as usual. Plus they had gone up to $1.50! The dressing is a mix of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, garlic, ginger, and green onions. Since we all like a different amount of oil we put our own over top. Garnish with cilantro, lime, and green onions.
Omnivore 