Steve and I plan our meals for the week the weekend before. This past weekend, we decided upon 3 recipes that would be packed full of flavor, would leave us leftovers, and would be fairly simple to make.
Turns out, they weren't simple enough.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Tuesday night is the first night we cook since I have classes until 9pm on Mondays, so Steve has leftovers or makes sandwiches. I had planned on making a Tequila-free Tequila Lime Chicken recipe that would be great by itself or in a quesadilla. I even bought an avocado to top off the chicken, mmmm, it sounded so good! Tuesday night came around, though, and the thought of sticking the marinade ingredients in the food processor seemed like too much work. So, I grilled the chicken using a grill pan, olive oil, salt, and pepper. To help speed up the cooking process, I pounded the chicken breasts between two pieces of wax paper to make their thickness more consistent from top to bottom and thinner. We roasted tomato slices topped with olive oil, salt, pepper, and shredded Swiss cheese as our vegetable side dish. It had been a long time since I had made simple grilled chicken and so I was surprised by how flavorful and moist it was without any sauce or marinade or accoutrements. It was such a simple meal but it tasted good and took no time at all.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Turns out, they weren't simple enough.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Tuesday night is the first night we cook since I have classes until 9pm on Mondays, so Steve has leftovers or makes sandwiches. I had planned on making a Tequila-free Tequila Lime Chicken recipe that would be great by itself or in a quesadilla. I even bought an avocado to top off the chicken, mmmm, it sounded so good! Tuesday night came around, though, and the thought of sticking the marinade ingredients in the food processor seemed like too much work. So, I grilled the chicken using a grill pan, olive oil, salt, and pepper. To help speed up the cooking process, I pounded the chicken breasts between two pieces of wax paper to make their thickness more consistent from top to bottom and thinner. We roasted tomato slices topped with olive oil, salt, pepper, and shredded Swiss cheese as our vegetable side dish. It had been a long time since I had made simple grilled chicken and so I was surprised by how flavorful and moist it was without any sauce or marinade or accoutrements. It was such a simple meal but it tasted good and took no time at all.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
I love beef stroganoff. It has savory meat, creamy sauce, and cooked mushrooms - what's not to love? This was what I was going to make Wednesday night. Again, it wasn't a hard recipe, but again I just didn't feel like doing the work. To my credit, I really wanted to go out to dinner last night. I hadn't slept well Tuesday night and felt like a zombie all day. Instead, I suggested to Steve that we just make hamburger patties. He looked online and found a recipe to add a little flavor to our usually boring hamburgers (meat, salt, pepper). I didn't see the recipe, but I know he added a couple dashes each of cumin and garlic powder (in lieu of minced garlic), some bread crumbs, and an egg. Probably pepper and salt, too? We added sliced cheddar cheese to half of the patties and left half plain.
For our veggie side dish, I sliced one yellow squash and one zucchini and threw them into a microwave-safe bowl with 2 tablespoons of butter, salt, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of water. I covered the dish with plastic wrap then nuked it for 2 minutes, stirred, 2 minutes more, stirred, etc. until the veggies were steamed tender. Then I added a little more pepper to taste.
Steve's hamburgers were extremely tasty! I had worried that they'd taste too much like meatloaf but they didn't. I ate a whole patty along with a serving of veggies! As some of you know, that's a lot for me. And then, when Steve took Sadie for a walk a little while later, I ate another half of a patty while doing the dishes. It was kind of addicting. And really, really simple.
Tonight, we were supposed to have leftovers, but since I didn't make something that had leftovers (except the one hamburger patty that Steve had for lunch today), I pulled out two pork chops that I had in the freezer. Guess what I'll be doing with them tonight? Yep...pulling out the grill pan and having another simple, tasty dinner!
I'm glad tomorrow is date night!