Wednesday, July 22, 2020

What We've Been Eating Lately!

Happy Wednesday! How is your week going? Today, I'm going to talk about what we've been eating lately as I love reading about what others are cooking. It usually gives me some much-needed inspiration! As you can see, we tend to eat a lot of Mexican and Indian dishes as these are flavor profiles we love. Plus those cuisines tend to be naturally gluten free.

1. Picadillo from my new Milk Street Kitchen Fast and Slow Instant Pot Cookbook. This is the first recipe I made from this book and it was a hit! Paul's portion is shown on the left below. I served it with beans and rice (we ate it on top of beans rice, I kept his separate as I wasn't sure if he'd eat the picadillo). It yielded several meals of leftovers and then Phil and I finished it off on Sunday - he put it on top of eggs and hashbrown. That was a really good combo! For those not familiar with picadillo, it's a Cuban dish with green olives, tomato paste, and spices such as cumin.



2. Chipotle Chicken Kabob tacos. This recipe caught my eye when a finance blogger I follow posted it. It's a kabob recipe but I skipped the kabob process and just cooked it over the stove top along with some peppers and onions. Originally I was going to cook this on a grill basket on our grill, but the heat index was 110F that day and I could bear to stand over a hot grill in that heat. I should have halved the chipotle in adobo sauce like the blogger did. It was too spicy for our toddler, but he did take a few bites. I used the leftovers to make burrito bowls for lunches using Spanish rice leftovers from another meal and black beans.

Sauteing the peppers/onions and the chicken while warming the corn tortillas.

My tacos with a little guac on the side for chips. I topped mine with a little sour cream to offset the heat of the chipotles!!

3. Lentil Enchiladas. The recipe I use is in the Peas and Thank You Cookbook, but this version is a copycat. We use real cheese and extra olives when we make ours. I also use green lentils instead of red so our filling takes longer to cook. I served this with Spanish rice. This is Phil's favorite meal I make and Paul loves it, too!

4. Rogan Josh from the Milk Street Kitchen cookbook. This recipe was kind of putzy as you had to reduce the sauce after the chicken cooked but it was worth the effort! It was on par with Indian take-out in my opinion!! I served it on Basmati rice with green beans from my garden. Paul did not eat any of this as I figured the Indian flavors would be too strong for him. So he had beans, rice, and enchiladas. I tried giving him some green beans but he wouldn't touch them. He's missing out!


And that's a wrap! Tell me what you've been eating lately! Typically we would have had one grilled meal during the week but the extreme heat/humidity made grilling less appealing last week!

11 comments:

Marlys said...

Well, it all looks delicious! I think you might have to help me with meals when you visit as this is new cuisine to us! I'll make copies of the recipes so we can have a few when you visit.

Jeanie said...

I just made a really great potato salad and birthday cake for Rick today -- and we'll be grilling steaks out!

Stephany said...

Gosh, I've really been the worst at cooking lately. When it's just me, it's so easy to just do a quick UberEats order or frozen pizza, haha. Those chicken kabobs look good, but I'll have to see about the ingredients. I'm a wimp when it comes to spicy food.

My go-to lately is just cutting up half a chicken breast into bite-size pieces and tossing it in olive oil and then sprinkling all sorts of herbs/spices on it. It cooks quickly in a pan and tastes good! I'm all about the easy meals, haha.

Grateful Kae said...

I've been totally off my cooking game lately again too. Feels like ever since the 4th of July when we were gone, then leading up to Ethan's birthday, then being up north, I just can't get back into my groove on ANYTHING. It's been pretty bad! I need to really regroup my entire life this weekend!

Your dishes all look so yummy! Love the chipotle chicken tacos and the picadillo! I made picadillo for the first time this past year too. It's a pretty popular dish in Mexico too, though their version is a slightly different from your Cuban version. It has been served at many buffet style parties with our Mexican friends and family before. Might need to make that again soon. We have been on a chipotle chicken tostada kick lately and have made those a bunch of times during quarantine. One pack of tostadas lasts my family quite a long time as there are only 4 of us and they don't really go stale too quickly, so once we have it once, we feel the need to make them again relatively soon after to use up the tostadas! We all love them, too.

The Many Thoughts of a Reader said...

So I want to eat all of that but currently Adeline and I are the only ones eating olives!!! Have me over for dinner!!

Gracie said...

I love all the ethnic flavors! I haven't done anything very complicated lately; anything time-consuming can't be done on a weeknight as I don't get home until around 5:45, and then I have to settle in from work, back our bags for the next day, and nurse the baby before I start dinner. Today we had provolone and arugula stuffed chicken breasts, feta-lemon potato salad, and green beans. Last night was ribs with a spicy cinnamon rub over cheese grits with an avocado-tomato salad. The only thing different I did this week was paninis - turkey, cheddar, fig chutney, tomato, avocado, spinach - and that was unusual for us because we almost never eat sandwiches. David is weird and doesn't like sandwiches, so I don't put them on the menu very often! But turkey was on sale, and I had made a batch of fig chutney from some fresh figs a friend brought over, and paninis popped into my mind.

Jolene - EverydayFoodie said...

That all looks so good!! I think I made picadillo once when I was about 20, and didn't like olives at the time, so wouldn't have included them. I should really make it again now that I LOVE olives.

We have been grilling onion and mushrooms most days, and just having some cheese, olives, maybe a bit of bread with olive oil and balsamic. Really simple snacky stuff, with not much thought or effort required, so we can have more time to just sit and enjoy the outdoors. I've loved the slower pace of life, and am squeezing every last moment out of this summer.

Amber said...

YUM! That all looks amazing!! Can you come cook for me?? haha. Honestly my cooking motivation has been LOW this summer. I really need to get back into a good routine of meal planning and prep and actually making what's on my plan and trying new recipes, but I just have not been into it recently. On Eric's most recent night shift Olivia and I ate a long stretch of hot dogs! I did try Hello Fresh very recently because my coworker sent me a free box and I think I might do that every once in a while, especially while Eric is working. My favourite part was the pre-portioned ingredients and the very easy to follow instructions. All three meals turned out quite good also!

Abby said...

YUM to all of it!! Oooo I should try that Rogan Josh recipe. That Indian cookbook I have doesn't have any. We order indian takeout every other week from this place near our house, and one of the dishes we always share is the Lamb Rogan Josh.

Kyria @ Travel Spot said...

It all looks great! I know that those lentil enchiladas are good, as that is what you served me when I came to visit you in Charlotte. As I recall, it was paired with a corn salad that was delicious as well! You do good food!

I am super lazy (efficient?) when it comes to cooking. Last week I went to Target and they had an italian sausage on sale, so lunches were italian sausage and zucchini. This week, I went to Costco and chicken was cheap, so I put some thighs in the pressure cooker last night and am making stock this morning. This week's meals will all feature chicken! I would guess it will be chicken salad, chicken "burrito" bowls (top with avocado, yogurt, salsa, etc.) and maybe a chicken soup to use the stock now since my freezer is full! That pretty much sums it up; my recipe planning mostly consists of (1) see what is on sale, (2) use that for a week! The end!

San said...

Yum. The tacos sound great!! We've been having a lot of salads and grilled chicken/kebobs lately. We're keeping it light on the cooking side because it's been so hot here.