Meal Plan

This week, we are having --

Spaghetti with Meat (turkey) Sauce
Orange Glazed Tilapia
Broccoli Salad
Veggie Burritos (carryover from last week- these will have butternut squash, black beans, quinoa and peach salsa... yum!)
Homemade Pizza

SW Pasta Salad

Southwest Pasta Salad

This recipe is based on a recent Cooking Light salad, with a few changes.


Nouns-
1 box penne pasta, prepared and drained
1.5 cups shredded cooked white meat chicken
1 bunch scallions, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 cup corn kernels
3 tablespoons orange juice
1 lime
2 tbsp cilantro, minced
1/2 can chipotles in adobo

Verbs-
Combine the pasta, chicken, corn, scallions, and pepper in a large bowl.  Strain the juice from the chipotles and mix it with the orange juice.  Add a few chipotles, finely diced, if you want it very very spicy.  Pour the chipotle/orange juice mixture over the salad and toss to coat.  Finish by sprinkling the cilantro over the top and garnishing with lime wedges.

Hint- for the chicken, I used leftover shredded chicken from last week's mexican casserole.  To make yummy shredded chicken, I simply put a few chicken breasts in the crockpot with about a half cup OJ, a few table spoons of chili powder and a glug or two of beer.  Cook on low for 8 hours and then shred with forks.  Yum!

Meal Plan, and sorry my posts have been lame recently, but I just started a new job so I'm pretty tired and stuff

Meal Plan!

This week, we are having---
Stroganoff
Meatballs, Mashed potatoes and gravy with green beans
Zesty Southwest Pasta Salad
Veggie Burritos
Cabbage Salad


Also, as aforementioned, I started a new job.   I have been mentally drafting a nice big post about it, but I've been too lazy/tired to actually write it yet.  So, in the meantime, as a tidbit, a few things I've learned in my first two weeks:

Boating under the Influence of Intoxicants is a crime, even if your "boat" is a raft, and even if all you do is fall out of it and you don't actually go anywhere.

You should pay for things before you leave Sears.

Having a messy house is not child abuse.

Winning is overrated.

Meal Plan--- sorry it's late!

This week:

Citrus glazed tilapia
Quinoa Pilaf with Asparagus
Mexican casserole
Spinach salad
Fruity nutty Chicken salad

Another use for Orange Marmalade!

Seriously, I love Orange Marmalade.  I use it to make all kinds of things.  Sauces, stir fries, salad dressing...  it is great stuff.  Anyway, so the meal plan called for Citrus Glazed Tilapia, and I was planning on doing a recipe from Cooking Light, but then I got home super late and was just banging things around trying to get food to mouth as quickly as possible, and didn't have patience for an actual recipe.

So....

Enter Orange Marmalade.  And my other favorite recipe condiment, Chili Garlic Sauce.


Spicy Orange Glazed Tilapia... as made up by me, just now
Nouns:
Frozen Tilapia, as many fillets as you think you will eat, thawed, rinsed and patted dry
3 tbsp orange marmalade
1/2 tsp chili garlic sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp rice wine vinegar (or lemon juice, or water, or whatever... )

Verbs:
Fire up the ol' toaster oven to 450.  Mix together all the ingredients except the tilapia in a bowl.  Line the toaster oven pan with tin foil and grease it a little to prevent sticking if you worry about that kind of thing.  Stick your fillets on the pan and schmear them with your marmalade mixture.  Bake at 450 for 5-8 minutes or until cooked through.  Do not overbake your tilapia!  Dry tilapia is ucky.  Seriously, it takes mere minutes to cook it all the way through.

I served this with a simple salad of spring greens with a homemade lemon vinaigrette and some brown rice.  It were delicious.  And fast.

Meal Plan

This week is a bit rushed since I started my new job today (remember this?  Yep, it's that job!), but I did manage to make two loaves of the no-knead artisan bread yesterday, which did well even though I added about 3/4 cup of wheat bran to the dough.  The flavor and texture are still light and chewy and excellent.  yummm!

Tonight's dinner was just strawberry spinach salad, bread and cheese.  Very basic, very easy, very delicious.

The rest of the week will be:
Citrus glazed tilapia with spring greens and lemon vinaigrette
"Swimming Angel"- Thai Peanut Sauce over ginger chicken, steamed broccoli and spinach and jasmine rice
Mexican Casserole
Quinoa Stuffed Peppers
Homemade pizza