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Dinners This Week

Welcome back from spring break! It is now time to meal plan, once again! Fortunately, the time away has (temporarily, I’m sure) reinvigorated me!

Here are some recipes I am actually looking forward to making this week:

Dinners for the Week of April 2 – April 8:

Notes: I will be adding bell peppers to this recipe for veggie appeal. Maybe chickpeas.

Follow up: This was decent. It tasted nothing at all like the kind of butter chicken you get an Indian restaurant, let’s be clear on that. But it was pretty good. And it was pretty easy. I did end up adding bell peppers and chickpeas, which were a good complement to the sauce.

Follow up: This salad is THE BOMB. The dressing is delicious and the pickled onions are SO GOOD. I never knew arugula could be so yummy!

Follow up: This batch of fire fry turned out to be WAY over-seasoned, when I was pretty sure that I had fixed my over-seasoning issues. (What I do is use an entire large container of yogurt, then increase the spices/herbs to 1 tablespoon where the recipe calls for 1 teaspoon.) My husband and I determined that it is the YOGURT that may be at fault. I use the cheapest, lowest-calorie fat-free plain yogurt I can find, which is Dannon. Next time, I am going to get a Greek yogurt instead and see if that helps. (I know that using a full-fat yogurt helps, because I did that accidentally recently and it was DELISH, but I am not really into using full-fat yogurt every time we eat this.)

Notes: Probably doing the yum yum sauce with the tuna is overkill, since it will be marinated already… but I have been wanting to do the sauce for a while, and this seems like a good fit.

Follow up: The yum-yum sauce was good, and I didn’t feel like it was overkill exactly. The marinade for the tuna was pretty mild. My bigger problem was overcooking the tuna. It is NOT EASY to get tuna to that perfect cooked-on-the-outside, -pink-on-the-inside level. Maybe next time I will use a different type of fish.

Follow up: This was very delicious.

  • Out

In addition to buying the ingredients for the above, I will be buying food to replace some of the items that were lost to our extended power outage. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been – it only affected one outlet, which had to be reset when we got home. The outlet happened to be the same one that powers both our wireless internet and our downstairs fridge. The wifi is now rebooted, and now communicating with our security system so our security company can stop calling us (they are on top of things, at least), and the fridge is up and running again. But everything in it was room temperature by the time we came home, so everything perishable had to be thrown out. The saddest things to toss were a) two miniature cakes I made with leftover cake batter from Carla’s last birthday; although my experience with eating the top of my wedding cake after a long stint in the freezer should have been enough to deter me from keeping them quite so long; b) a brand-new box of chicken dinosaurs, which have been Carla’s Entrée of Choice lately; and c) three packages of pork chops I got on sale. UGH. Oh, and a three-pack of butter from Costco. I held onto that a little longer than the rest of the stuff. BUTTER.

Oh well. Aside from the regrettable tossing of what was once perfectly good food, I am also kicking myself for not leaving the freezer unplugged long enough to clean it. Some ancient boxes of popsicles leaked and there are now greenish icebergs in the back of my freezer. Ew.

 

What are you having for dinner this week?

5 thoughts on “Dinners This Week”

  1. Ugh ugh UGH. I hate throwing out perfectly good food. Although, I guess it isn’t perfectly good anymore…but ugh!
    Nothing to do with meals but I wanted to tell you that yesterday “The Friend” came in, I had it on hold at the library. I’m going to start it tonight and I’ll let you know what I think!

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  2. Sorry to hear about your power issue and the tossing out of food. So frustrating! It is starting to become warm enough around here to use the grill, so Coach grilled chicken on Sunday. He made enough so that there are leftovers. This is not the way he usually operates and I am thrilled. I picked up a Costco rotisserie chicken on Sat because shopping at regular grocery and Costco – I deserve a break. I did make sweet and sour green bean casserole, so we could eat it a few times this week. Reheats great and everyone loves it. Last night I made meatloaf and mashed potatoes and today I have balsamic pork tenderloin in the crock pot. Probably tacos tomorrow and then leftovers. I just realized I still need to send you my 7 layer taco dip recipe. Getting to that next!

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  3. 7 Layer taco dip

    1 (1 oz package) taco seasoning mix
    1 (16 oz) can refried beans
    1 (8 oz) package of cream cheese, softened
    1 (8 oz) sour cream
    1 (16 oz) jar salsa
    1 large tomato chopped (I sometimes use a bit more)
    1 green bell pepper chopped (I sometimes use a bit more)
    1 bunch of green onions chopped
    1 small head of iceberg lettuce, shredded
    1 (6 oz) can sliced black olives drained (I never use these- just my preference)
    2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

    Blend taco mix and refried bean. Spread in pan. I use a 9 x 7 inch pyrex but it usually overflows so I make a tiny version in a very small pyrex and either stick it in the basement where the kids hang out or I take it out for my kids to eat the next day). Mix sour cream and cream cheese – spread over beans. Top with salsa (I use Tostitos and substituted it for a Costco variety recently – but the salsa was so runny that I will never do that again). Place a layer of tomato, green bell pepper, green onions, and lettuce over salsa, and top with cheddar cheese. Garnish with black olives. We eat it with scoop chips.

    Always a huge hit and whatever parties I go to people request that I bring this dip along!

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