If I had to sum up this week in single word, it would be: I tried.
SATURDAY
Grilled chicken and salad
Mr. Husband made this while I did something or other, probably drawing kittens on the backs of Corrie’s hands, or maybe just drinking. Under my evil influence, he cracked open another box or two of stolen poor person’s bacon and sprinkled that over the salad. It tastes a little bit better each time, if you were wondering.
I would like you to notice that, in an attempt to dress up this terrible, terrible food photo, I spread some paper bags under it. Then I moved them around a little to hide the bar codes, and then I decided I would just eat my food.
SUNDAY
Pork roast; oven roasted potatoes; cole slaw
I stabbed the pork all over, decided I was too lazy to mess around with garlic cloves, and rolled the meat around in Goya Mojo Criollo Marinade and let it wallow all day. We cooked it at 375 for a couple of hours and sliced it up. Look how juicy! The flavor went right through to the middle, yum yum.
The potatoes are mixed up with oil and some standard seasonings and slid into the oven for forty minutes or so.
Lena made cole slaw, which was a tiny bit of an odd pairing with the pork and potatoes, but it’s such a good, snappy cole slaw recipe, there will always be a spot on my plate for it.
MONDAY
Chicken burgers, chips, salad
Probably someone somewhere could think of something to say about this meal, but not me, not now.
Oh, wait! It is good with horseradish sauce. There.
TUESDAY
Fish tacos; tortilla chips
Irene careened into the kitchen on roller skates and started flailing around, knocking all the fish to the floor. But it was all right, because, she explained, it was already battered.
This February vacation, she’ll be bussing tables in the Catskills. Please tip generously, and let us know if you hear anything.
Fish, shredded cabbage, avocados, salsa, sour cream, and lime juice on flour tortillas. Can’t believe I went my whole life without knowing fish tacos were a thing.
I had cilantro, too but it mysteriously rotted away into pulp.
UPDATE: Corrie turned the refrigerator to 2, the stinker.
WEDNESDAY
Pizzas
Olive and pepperoni. One briefly and mysteriously burst into flame when all I did was drop it onto the heating coil, sheesh.
Oh, check it out: Benny is so good at making pizzas, she is now taking on apprentices.
I know this is a blurry picture, but that expression of overwhelmed-by-cuteness, plus pride, just killed me. Good thing we had Corrie! Benny was born to be a big sister.
THURSDAY
Roast chicken thighs and potatoes; sweet peppers and hummus; chocolate rice pudding
This is the closest thing I came to trying a new recipe this week, and I didn’t come close enough to actually make it.
A dear lady sent me AN EIGHT-QUART INSTANT POT!!!!! It gleams and it is enormous and beautiful. Even Mighty Joe Young is impressed.
I’ve been hearing all about the life-changing magic of pressure cooking, so I was super excited and made plans for this pressure cooker butter chicken recipe. But then I recalled that we had spent the week frolicking with a stomach bug, and tomato sauce and garam masala did not seem like the best choice, not after a week full of things like battered fish and pork in citrus sauce. Not that I ended up making something light and bland instead of butter chicken, but at least there was no tomato sauce.
(I put the chicken thighs in a shallow pan with a bunch of sliced potatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, garlic powder, and rosemary, and cooked them at 375 for about thirty-five minutes, then turned on the broiler to brown them up a bit. Very easy and surprisingly tasty.)
I also discovered that I’ve been stockpiling peppers and hummus, so I sliced them all up and made a pretty rainbow pepper plate, thinking my kids would be delighted. I keep forgetting that they are not all four years old.
Anyway, they ate some vegetables.
The van was in the shop all day, so I had some more time at home and was casting around for something to make in my brand new bella machina. With the ingredients I had on hand, and ignoring ideas like “but that doesn’t go with this meal in the slightest,” I settled on creamy rice pudding.
I skipped the raisins because my family are a bunch of inauthentic swine and don’t care for raisins in things, and added some cocoa paste to the milk to give it a mild chocolate flavor. Very nice! Just like rice pudding should be, creamy and fragrant. We ate it warm and claimed it was for Candlemas, whatever that is.
The Instant Pot is FUN. Okay, releasing the steam valve is FUN. I showed the kids lots of pictures of pot lids embedded in the ceiling and pot bases embedded in the countertop, and now they are all properly terrified of it and will let me play with it all by myself.
FRIDAY
I got some heart-shaped pasta, thinking it would please Benny.
I . . . think it did?
Not sure.
***
Okay, so I have TWO questions for you, with some likely overlap.
1.There is that Sportsball thing coming up on Sunday. Hit me up with your favorite Sportsball party recipe, please. I tend to shy away from things like devilled eggs compressed into football shapes, or ham sandwiches trimmed into rectangles and dyed green to look like a football field. My one and only surefire Sportsball recipe is Jalapeno Popper Dip, which is completely disgusting, and has enough calories to light up the Eiffel tower, and you will suddenly notice that you accidentally ate all of it without chewing.
Oh, probably that bacon ranch crack bread stuff we made would go over well, too. This is the kind of food I’m looking for: Food that makes you feel equal parts shame and defiance the whole time you’re gobbling it down, and then it’s so salty that you require beer.
Second question: Whooooo has spectacular Instant Pot recipes for me — things for which the IP is just a godsend? I have been browsing through all the sites, and I joined a group, but you are the ones I trust. Main dishes, side dishes, veggies, soups, desserts, I want to know!
And finally, thanks again to the dear lady who sent me the Instant Pot! I would like you to know that, as I was reading through the manual, Corrie took a look under the lid, stuck her face right into the shiny inner pot, and then shouted with delight, “It ME!”
I don’t know how I’m ever going to top that dish, but I will try.
Thank you very much your blog is very useful. Nice post please share some new ideas and write a post on the Baingan Bharta recipe that will save time with easy and tasty.
Lol! I love this and I will be making that jalapeño dip on Friday. It’s tough finding yummy vegetarian cheat appies to go with date night. I am more of a slow cooker prep it the night before when Monkey is in bed and let it cook all day kinda Mama but I look forward to seeing what you create in your IP maybe you can persuade me to convert.
INSTANT POT! Lots of good ideas from posters above, including the hard boiled eggs.
Nom Nom Paleo and their Instant pot Kalua Pork has been my recent find: excellent way to make a very tasty pork roast to shred, which I do with the great 7 lbers or so from Aldi. Only need added ingredients of a few strips of bacon, garlic cloves, and cabbage, so great affordable meal for a large family 🙂 rolls are good too!
Life-changing tip for the fish tacos: instead of the sour cream, use a white sauce made of 1/2 cup mayo, 1/2 cup plain yogurt, and 1/4 cup chopped cilantro. Trust me, it elevates them to fantasy-level. (When we left San Diego for Connecticut, I thought I would perish without Rubio’s fish tacos. Then I found the recipe online, and everything was okay again.)
My favorite football game food: slow cooker chicken wings – 4 lb chicken wings, sprinkle with some seasoning or spice rub, cook on low for 3-4 hours. Transfer wings to a sheet pan (line it with parchment paper or non-stick tin foil – trust me), place under the broiler for 10 – 15 min, baste with bbq sauce or any kind of sauce you fancy, turning the wings a couple of times. Yum!
I’m making this on Sunday for my husband who has been craving “bread bowl” dip, never tried it but looks amazing: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/eddie-jackson/spinach-artichoke-and-red-pepper-dip.html
Ooh! My favorite sportsball-party recipe is mini-Reubens: little rye cocktail bread slices, Thousand Island dressing, deli corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese. Assemble each slice (dressing spread on bread, corned beef and sauerkraut in whichever order, cheese on top), place on lightly greased-or-sprayed baking sheet if you didn’t assemble them there, bake or broil until toasty and delicious.
Oh, and they’re open-faced, so you don’t put more bread on top after the ingredient-stacking.
I use my instant pot most often for yogurt, boiled eggs, and rice but I’ve had good results with a lot of recipes!
http://www.skinnytaste.com/instant-pot-pork-carnitas-mexican/
http://www.pressurecookingtoday.com/chunky-potato-cheese-soup/comment-page-2/#comment-255803 (with gold potatoes – who knew there was a difference?? – soo good)
http://whattheforksfordinner.com/asiago-shrimp-risotto/
http://www.pressurecookingtoday.com/pressure-cooker-mongolian-beef/
https://thisoldgal.com/pressure-cooker-creamy-tuscan-garlic-chicken/
And this macaroni – EASIER than the blue box b/c you just throw everything in, let it do its thing, then mix in the milk and cheese until it’s melted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzQ8gWq_b38
Make my chili. It’s really good. It’s on my blog.
My fav party dip is black bean dip. Brown hamburger, onion, and garlic with salt and pepper. Drain. Add in 1 can of drained black beans and one can of undrained black beans that you puréed in food processor. Add a can of tomato sauce. Simmer for a bit, season as necessary. Bake if you want to topped with cheese so it melts and jalapeños if you like on top. Serve with chips. Easy to double and SUPER delicious as long as you season well.
OK super-easy game day recipe: taco nachos! (I have a “recipe” here: http://rosie-ablogformymom.blogspot.com/2017/01/my-sunday-best-vol-37-pattern-mixing.html but basically you’re just going through throw a bunch of leftovers on chips, cover them with cheese, and bake them)
Also, instant pot recipes: Paula Deen’s red wine beef stew is lovely, Pioneer Woman’s pot roast, really any beef recipe works well and is SO MUCH FASTER!!!
Electric pressure cooker!!!!! The best thing in the world. Any cheap tough meat (such as corned beef) or any meat takes minutes to make it tender. Almost any crock pot soup can be cooked in 20 min on high pressure. See: Website: http://www.hippressurecooking.com/; Also,boiled eggs: All dozen (or even just a few) in the pot with each pin pricked on the end, 1 cup water, low pressure. 6 minutes, natural release, put eggs in ice water to cool. Shells fall off them and they are all perfect. Frozen chicken breasts: cook in 10 min. with 1 cup water and seasoning, natural release. Also: perfect Cheesecake, for real! I use mine 2-5 times a week.
My go to sportsball recipe is slow cooker buffalo chicken dip. 1 can of white chicken meat, 12 oz. bottle of Frank’s hot sauce (I find Aldi’s brand a perfectly acceptable equivalent), 2 8 oz. pkgs cream cheese, 16 oz. bottle ranch dressing, 16 oz. shredded cheddar or monterey jack cheese. All in crockpot for a few hours until greasy and melty and bubbly and delicious. Goes best with corn chips like Fritos.
Our week:
Saturday: Pork green chile stew and Jiffy cornbread for our out of town guests–my parents, and our newly baptized baby’s godparents. It has been so long since I have made cornbread, or cooked for more than just my small family, I didn’t realize that one box of Jiffy mix makes a laughably small amount of cornbread. It was delicious though and I vowed to start stockpiling the mix and have it more often now that Aldi carries it.
Sunday: I fully intended the spread at our afternoon baptism party to count as dinner (Costco sandwich platter, spinach and artichoke dip and chips, assorted berries, Costco cake) but my parents decided around 7 that they were hungry and taking matters into their own hands so they generously ordered pizza delivery for all of us.
Monday: Fajita chicken nachos, easy meal after a weekend of hosting and the drive to drop my parents back off at the airport.
Tuesday: T-bones were on sale at Kroger so I used my new cast iron skillet (Christmas present!) to cook a couple, plus “champ” which is apparently mashed potatoes with green onions mixed in. Fortunately/sadly it was a great cut of meat; means that I didn’t manage to render it inedible, but it deserved much better treatment than it got from me.
Wednesday: used leftover mashed potatoes and made cottage pie.
Thursday: carryout from Buffalo Wild Wings!
Friday: I’m going to try out this green rice casserole and probably make up some quesadillas to go with it: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/green-rice-casserole
IN the south, on game days, you make rotel dip. Put a pound of velveeta in the crockpot (or saucepan…didn’t you get a crockpot?) with a can of rotel tomatoes. Tada! Dip. Of course, that doesn’t make a whole lot, you might double it. or triple it. You can add a pound of browned beef if you want to make it more artery-clogging.
Yes, we add a pound of browned sausage to our Rotel dip to make it more hearty. Lil’ Smokies in the crockpot with a bottle of BBQ sauce and a couple tablespoons of grape jelly also get gobbled up rather quickly.
Ro-Tel dip was my absolute favorite thing to eat when I was a kid . . . I still love it now, but not by the gallon. So . . . salty . . . must have beer.