one pan meals

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Dinners This Week

Thank you so much for your well wishes, both in terms of my progress toward my to-do list, and in terms of my health. The former is going better than I anticipated (the electrician AND the furnace person have been here since I posted! yay!) and I got a call back from 2/3 of the pool people I left a message for. (The first one left a message and I need to call them back. The second person called, I spoke to him and got some details, he asked me to text him to see if I was in his service area and if I wasn’t he would recommend someone who was; I texted him and he never followed up.) 

I am feeling so much better, but also I am pretty sure I have a sinus infection. (By the way, Word is insisting that “sinus” is misspelled. I really don’t think it is, but that little red underline is making me question everything I thought I knew.) A sinus infection is typical for me, when I have a cold. Alas, even though I feel like I recognize the symptoms, it’s one of those things where you have to wait for at least ten days before you can call the doctor, or they will say, “Well, colds can linger. Give it at least ten days and then give me a call back.” No way am I making ONE MORE CALL than I need to. Especially because today I also need to call the orthodontist about a loose bracket and try to convince them that they should see Carla after school and not in the middle of the school day, even though they seem completely baffled every time I suggest the latter. 

Carla did end up calling the hair salon to make an appointment for my husband. She did a great job. The only mildly amusing thing was that the scheduler didn’t question her AT ALL. Just said, “Oh, you’re making an appointment for your daddy? What’s his name?” and then went through with scheduling the appointment like it was totally normal for a ten-year-old to be in charge of her father’s calendar. Maybe it is! I am not complaining! I just thought she might get some gentle pushback, like, “Oh, is your daddy there helping you make this call?” or something. I don’t even know. Perhaps since there have been multiple times when people have asked me, a grown woman, whether my husband is there to give his permission for me to talk to them about things for which we share joint ownership, I thought it might be a little more difficult for a CHILD to make an appointment not that I am bitter or jaded or anything. 

Oh right, we’re supposed to be talking about DINNERS. What are you in the mood to eat, Internet? I’ve got nothing. And yet I cannot have nothing, because it’s part of my job to plan the meals! 

Time to scroll my endless lists of meal ideas… 

Dinners for the Week of March 4-10

  • One Pan Chicken, Sweet Potatoes, and Broccoli: It’s a sheet pan meal kind of week, I think. Plus, I already have broccoli in my fridge and chicken in my freezer. Maybe a sweet potato will materialize on my car hood tomorrow morning. The thing about sweet potatoes is that I always WANT to like them and then don’t like them in practice. But this dish sounds really good. So probably this is the one time when I WILL like them. Right? Right.
  • Lentil and Chickpea Salad with Feta: I’m in a lentil state of mind lately. I plan to eat this alongside some roasted salmon, but will make a chicken breast for my husband because I don’t want him to hate his life.
  • Crockpot Balsamic Pork Tenderloin: We haven’t had this in a hot minute! Yum. I could eat a big pile of this tangy shredded pork right now. (We serve it over rice with caramelized onions, feta, kalamata olives, and sundried tomatoes. Look at me, dual-purposing the feta rather than putting half a block in the fridge until it liquifies.)
  • Fish Tacos: You know tacos are one of my love languages. Let’s be honest. I will probably use fish sticks instead of buying and cooking wild cod. Wild cod is EXCELLENT, but fish sticks are EASY. 

Because I spend too much time ogling recipes on Instagram, I have also been influenced to make this three-ingredient yogurt cake. There is no way it will actually resemble Basque cheesecake right? That is just a pipe dream? But if I can persuade Carla to try it, it will feel like a win. A high-protein win. We’ll see. 

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Dinners This Week

I just spent a good long while searching through my archives for the words “sheet pan” because I already know that I have energy enough this week for ONE PAN and no more.

There’s no reason for the lack of energy. Just, you know, the usual meal-planning dread and dismay. 

If you have a favorite one-pan meal, I would be delighted to hear about it. (Omitted from today’s list are two favorites:  sheet pan Cuban chicken, which I heard about from Ernie a million years ago and which is delicious but which is similar to something we ate this weekend, and sheet pan chili chicken with sweet potatoes, which is scrumptious but has as an essential component a cilantro yogurt sauce.)

Dinners for the Week of May 15-21

  • Sheet Pan Tandoori Chicken and Cauliflower: This is exactly what I want to eat this week, but the marinade contains yogurt. So… I am either going to try a non-dairy yogurt or I will omit the yogurt entirely. 
  • Sheet Pan Teriyaki Salmon with Green Beans: I don’t love roasted green beans, but green beans are plentiful at the grocery store right now and this is so easy I hardly have to think about it which is a quality I am prioritizing more and more often these days. I may swap the salmon for chicken; we’ll see. 
  • Sheet Pan Garlic Butter Chicken and Potatoes: This has feta, but I can omit it from my portion. I don’t know if I’m in the mood for potatoes, either, which makes this an odd choice. But I figure I can swap in broccoli or zucchini and it will be just as tasty. Or perhaps I will scrap the entire recipe and go with this recipe for Mediterranean Chicken and Veggies instead.
  • Summer Chipotle Chicken Salad with Cilantro Dressing: This will be my reach meal this week – maybe I can aim to make it this weekend? It just sounds SO fresh and summery.