We are finally finished the 4 week meal plan! I have mixed emotions about this. I found that it was a lot of pressure, cooking something new EVERY night, even though I didn't have to come up with the ideas myself. I did like how organized we were (only one shopping trip per week and no impulse buys). At or around the three-week marker, we decided (due to my stress level) that we would only choose 3 of the 5 meals per week. This helped a lot, because we were free to have Campbell's soup or a frozen pizza once in a while.
Anyway, again - sorry about the lack of posts, but here is how the rest of the meals went down.
Okay okay - so this doesn't look super appetizing, but it was! This is part one of the taco night - chorizo and potato sauteed together (with a little s & p).
Here is part two - black bean salsa. It was super easy to make, even J thought so! It's just rinsed black beans, parsley, radishes and olive oil and lime juice.
The complete tacos. Soon to be topped with sour cream and avocados! Yummy! PS - no one told me you had to bake taco shells before consumption - not yummy :(
Ooh this was a good one! It's a baked chicken breast with red currant jelly glaze and spinach, sauteed with golden raisins and garlic! It was one of the more random recipes we tried, but definitely delicious.
This was one of my favourites - especially because now that I know the basics of stratas, it will be super easy to mix them up and try a bunch of different mixins. It was simply sauteed mushrooms, parsley and onions, then (in a big bowl) mix up eggs, milk and bread chunks. Add these together and stuff into a casserole dish and bake away. J wasn't a huge fan of all the parsley, but I thought it was perfect - it lightened up the heavy egg dish.
The salad was super simple; mixed greens and a olive oil / white wine vinegar dressing. Definitely a keeper (yes, without parsley sometimes for J).
This one was also random. I guess I didn't read all of the recipe before I started, but as I was chopping the apple and celery, I just assumed that they would be getting heated. Not so. We cooked the green lentils and then cooled them. Added chopped apple and celery as well as some parsley (take that J!). Mixed 'em together with some lemon juice and olive oil and ta-da! Some kind of apple/lentil salad. I guess it makes sense as it was served alongside pork, but neither of us were big fans of the salad.
And here is the finished product. Apple/lentil business on the left, delicious balsamic-glazed pork tenderloin on the right. Oh if only we could eat meals of just meat ;)
Chicken encore. This time it was supposed to be Cajun / blackened chicken, but somebody who will remain nameless forgot to pick that up. So we just seasoned with s & p and a little garlic powder.
And this was our last meal, collard greens, black-eyed peas, garlic and red peppers. It was super tasty and having never made collard greens, I was really impressed and surprised at how easy and delicious they were.
And now back to what I know best (debatable??) - reading. Let's leave the cooking to the chefs!
