tacos are my love language

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Dinners This Week

Sometimes a person wishes she could just sit in front of her laptop and read blogs all day long. Alas, NaBloPoMo desires notwithstanding, a person still has to plan meals, cook them, and eat them. (And post about them online so that Future Her can find the ideas and recipes when she’s completely baffled about what to make each night.)

Dinners for the Week of November 10-16

  • Ravioli with Beef and Green Beans: Ah yes, we’ve had another episode of “Suzanne Doesn’t Know How Much Food to Cook for Guests.” I made a big crockpot full of cider braised pot roast when friends visited this weekend. And now we have enough cider braised pot roast to last us the rest of 2025. Tonight I’m going to use the leftovers to make a made-up meal: cider-braised pot roast with goat cheese and caramelized onion ravioli and a cider reduction sauce, with pan-sauteed haricots verts on the side. Will this taste as good in reality as it sounds like it will, in my imagination? Hard to say, but I’m leaning toward “no.”
  • Fried Rice: My mom occasionally makes fried rice and it’s always very good and seems quite easy. Trader Joe’s has a package of frozen vegetable fried rice and I plan to throw some eggs, soy sauce, and frozen shrimp in with it to round things out.
  • Black Bean Burritos: We haven’t had these in awhile and I am very much in the mood for beany cheesy goodness drowned in hot sauce. 
  • Crispy Slow Cooker Carnitas: What is a week without tacos? A sad week indeed, I always say. Mainly I have a pork tenderloin in my freezer that keeps blocking the freezer drawer when I try to open it, which I’m pretty sure is a cry for attention.

My husband and I also have a date night this week, but as usual, even though I have known for many weeks that we have an upcoming kid-free evening, I have not made any effort to make reservations. Sigh. Perhaps we will order takeout and watch a horror movie instead of going out?

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Dinners This Week

I need a Real Meal Plan this week because a) we are having houseguests! and b) Carla begins two new after school activities this week, so I need to do some advance planning or we will end up eating nothing. 

This is a question I’ve asked before, but I am asking it again because food preferences change over time: Do you have A Specific Meal you make for guests? Like, something that everyone likes and you feel confident cooking it? 

Someone – including but not limited to my mother-in-law – inevitably mentions ordering-in instead of fooling around with making a bunch of food. My houseguests are very flexible and would be fine with takeout, and I’m not opposed to takeout, but we also just got back from a vacation where we ate out for every single meal and I’m ready for some home cooked meals. 

Here’s what I’ve got on the menu for the week.

Dinners for March 31-April 6

  • Teriyaki Chicken Salad: I think my kid will (possibly reluctantly) eat this too. A deconstructed version, at least.
  • Something With Asparagus???: Nicole’s recent post about her favorite spring things gave me a real hankering for asparagus. I’m having trouble finding recipes that really allow asparagus to shine but are also fairly easy to make and also also diabetic friendly. (For instance, I would love a pasta with asparagus and mushrooms, or a delicious pasta primavera, but I don’t think our houseguests would be able to enjoy those dishes.) Soup is out because my husband doesn’t consider soup to be a full meal; stir fry is out because I have a weird bias against making stir fry for houseguests, don’t ask me why, I don’t even know.

What’s on your meal plan for the week?

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Dinners This Week

At 5:30 this morning, I was torn from a nightmare by a low discordant keening. I might describe it as “toddler impersonating whale calls,” but my husband said it was more “cat meets blender.” We watched Longlegs last night, so the noise quite easily could have been the moaning of Nic Cage at his most grotesque and terrifying. (Even though I enjoyed it, I am not recommending the movie; it was Weird AF.)

We confirmined that the noise was, somehow, our neighbor’s snowplow – which means that it persisted for quite some time, as their driveway is not short. I did not fall back to sleep.

On the positive side, we got a ton of snow over the weekend. Oh, how I adore snow. I love the trees lacquered in white, how everything – shadows, blue skies, bare trees – assumes an extra vibrancy against the snow. I love sunshine caught in billions of ice crystals and winked back at me as I walk. Grey skies seem more dramatic and moody; sunny days have an extra sheen of cheer. I love it I love it I love it.

Soup is on the menu tonight, and therefore takes one of three spots for dinners this week. But before we get into that, I want to report on dinners past because they were YUM.

Dinners Last Week

  • Sheet Pan Veggie Shawarma: This was easy (aside from the veggie chopping, which is easy but time consuming) (I listen to an audiobook while chopping) and SO good. Few things are better than a big pile of roasted veggies. The seasoning/marinade was delicious, although I ended up doubling it because I added some chicken tenders to the mix. They were a good addition, especially for my husband. Also, because I was on a Green Sauce High from the previous week’s Birchie-recommended meal, I made the cilantro yogurt sauce from this recipe and slapped it on top of my veggie shawarma. One of the best decisions I made all week.
  • Salmon Burgers: For some reason, I dillied and dallied and delayed in making these, but then finally I did make them, and they were easy and yummy as usual. The recipe is from Cook’s Illustrated, and I’ve got a photo of the recipe here in case you want to try them too. Oh! The remarkable thing about this meal is that I forced Carla to eat it, too. She loves salmon and eats it regularly. This is the closest thing to salmon possible. She DID eat it, even though she didn’t particularly like it (it has teeny tiny shallots minced in it).
  • Beef Birria Tacos: The first time I ate beef birria was in Phoenix at a taco place, and I fell instantly, irrevocably in love. (By the way, I learned from my recipe search that birria is traditionally made with goat, but I’m not big on goat so I used chuck roast.) The need to eat beef birria again has been growing stronger and stronger with each passing week. However, I could not for the life of me find a recipe that I wanted to follow. Too many ingredients or too few; equipment I didn’t want to use; too many steps. What I ended up doing was cobbling together a recipe out of a bunch of recipes online… and it was SO GOOD. The recipe made enough for at least three generous meals, and we immediately froze the remaining beef and consommé, and I cannot stop thinking about it. So rich and spicy and omg perfection. My husband took over the actual taco making, which involves dipping a corn tortilla in the consommé, frying it, adding cheese and beef, and then putting on my plate for immediate consumption. This one is a keeper from a taste standpoint, but from a work standpoint, I think it’s something I would make maybe once a year.

There’s really no way I can top last week’s meals, so I’m not even going to try. This week is not about flash and romance, but instead about solid, reliable faves. Also, chicken was on sale, so it’s all about the chicken. (Luckily, these are veggie-heavy meals so I can limit or completely ignore the chicken in my own servings.)

Dinners for the Week of February 17-25

  • Chicken and Zucchini Stir Fry: I am more in the mood for this Szechuan Stir Fry, but the bell pepper quality was very poor today, so I pivoted to chicken and zucchini stir fry instead. Of course, I have to go back to the grocery store to buy things I forgot to buy (namely: the two key ingredients of Ham Sandwich: the ham and the sandwich rolls), so perhaps I will peruse the peppers to see if the prospects are more perky.

  • Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas: The bell peppers may not have been crisp enough for stir fry, but they were of acceptable quality for fajitas.

Here’s hoping that tonight I dream of swimming in a sea of birria consommé.