Hummus

February 2, 2021 8:40 PM

So I've had carrots sitting in my fridge for a while. Carrots last a while, so it's not a big deal, but I really wanted to get rid of them. For some reason when I was trying to think of a way to use them up, my mind went to hummus.

I love hummus. I love anything with chickpeas. But I think store-bought hummus is pretty terrible so I always make it myself. Apparently authentic hummus is really creamy and smooth but I like mine to have more texture in it. One of my best friends also really likes hummus. She's the same one who occasionally makes gumbo and lets me have some. I had planned a hang-out with her on Saturday, and I wanted to do something nice.

Now I like to make different variations of hummus, and this time I went with jalapeño cilantro hummus. The last time I made this, my friend told me it wasn't jalapeño-y enough. Which really just means it wasn't spicy. I usually de-seed jalapeños when I use them, but for this batch, I used two jalapeños and I mostly kept the seeds in it.

The verdict? It was delicious. Seriously, this is like the best my hummus has ever tasted. I brought the hummus and some pita bread over to my friend's place and she finished it all the same day.

Oh, but I also used some in Mediterranean Hummus Bowls. This recipe has become one of my go-to's.

I know what you're thinking! What about those carrots? Well, don't worry, I didn't forget about them. I had to make more hummus anyway, so I cut up some carrots to dip in the hummus. And I considered taking a picture of it, but it's literally just hummus and carrots, and that's kind of boring. Delicious though.

Beef and Pineapple Enchiladas

February 1, 2021 9:23 PM

A week before going home for the holidays, I bought some corn tortillas to make tacos. When I was home, we made tacos, and my aunt bought some corn tortillas because she knows I like them. The problem is no one else in my family really likes corn tortillas, so I took those home and now I have a surplus of corn tortillas.

I make tacos a lot, so this time I thought I'd make some enchiladas. The first few times I tried to make enchiladas in my life they were pretty terrible. But I think I've gotten better at it, somehow.

I was browsing enchilada recipes on Budget Bytes and came across Beef and Pineapple Enchiladas, and I thought, "Perfect! I can use my opened can of pineapple chunks!" and then I looked at the recipe more closely and I thought about the combination of ground beef and pineapples and thought "Ew, that sounds kinda gross."

Well, if it was really that bad, then Beth would have removed it from her site. The reviews were very positive so I figured I'd give it a shot. I wrote down the recipe in my notebook, and man were there a lot more steps in this than I realized. But it seemed easy, so it was a good thing to make on my lazy Sunday.

The filling actually didn't look too bad. But I should have added more pineapple. Use the whole can. This also made way way more enchilada sauce than I needed. I might have to freeze it and make more enchiladas in a month.

Not a bad recipe. I'd give it 4/5 stars.

Meal Plan: 1/23 - 1/29

January 29, 2021 9:10 PM

Normally I would start with a picture of my whiteboard, but there's a ridiculous amount of photoshopping MS Paint-ing involved to get the image to look the way I want. So, I actually went and re-organized the whiteboard to make it a little easier on me. But you'll have to wait for next week's meal plan post to see it.

I will show you my groceries, though! This week I made shrimp scampi florentine and BBQ chicken pizza, which you already know. I bought ingredients for those meals, and I also bought a few extra things for snacks, like getting chickpeas to make hummus. I spent a little over $30 on groceries.

Well, I impulse bought tilapia. (Frequent readers of this blog should not be surprised.) It was on sale for $6! It's normally $12 for the 2 lb bag! And that was from Giant Eagle, not Aldi. I know, it's always $6 at Aldi. But maybe this brand is better.

Also, Aldi was out of chickpeas! I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Aldi runs out of chickpeas a lot. I really didn't want to make another grocery store trip, so hummus will have to wait until next week. I really should just keep a constant supply of chickpeas like I do with eggs.

If you're wondering why I bought kimchi, it's so I could eat it with some meat that my grandparents prepared while I was visiting them.

My grandpa has the best recipe for both beef jerky and 腊肉. Deep frying things kind of scares me (but not as much as dough does) and I think I overcooked the 腊肉 a little, but it still tasted great.

I also asked several members of my family what 腊肉 (lat bhat) actually translates to. I know 肉 (bhat) means meat but what is 腊 (lat)?! No one was able to tell me! As I was looking things up in a Teochew app, I realized that 腊 is the same 腊 as in 腊肠 (lat chiang) Chinese Sausage. And then I looked this up in the Wiktionary and I learned 腊 basically means dry or dried meat. Now I know.

Okay, Chinese lesson aside, I only cooked two meals this week because I was still going through the leftovers in my freezer. It was my full intention to actually keep track of what I ate this week, but I realized I haven't written down anything since Monday. It was just bagels every morning, while rotating between the scampi, pizza, and leftovers during lunch and dinner.

And I did add pineapples on my leftover slices of pizza. I love leftover pizza. It's the best leftover.

Pizza

January 26, 2021 10:32 PM

Another thing that has been sitting in my freezer is marinara sauce. I made a large batch when I made fried mac n cheese, and since I couldn't finish it all, I figured I'd use it to make pizza later. In the meantime, I've been seeing so many pizza commercials on TV. Even Panera has pizza now! I was almost half tempted to buy some! But I didn't. Panera is expensive and you get tiny portions and I spent way way way too much money there when I was in college.

I was trying to think of some good pizza toppings. I feel like pizza should have mozzarella on it, but all I had was a leftover block of cheddar cheese and I did not feel like buying more cheese. And then after thinking about this for five minutes I thought "Forget this. I'm making BBQ chicken pizza." Cheddar and BBQ? That's a great combination.

Now, I'm not much of a baker. Dough kind of scares me. And since my sister isn't here, I of course bought pre-made pizza dough. You'd think this would be easy. Just flatten it out on a pizza pan and put toppings on. But I was struggling. It was so lumpy. I don't know how people make pizzas into such perfect circles. Maybe it's the tossing thing. I'm not gonna toss my pizza dough. That sounds even scarier.

When I took out the block of cheddar, I actually noticed a little bit of mold on it. I contemplated my options. I was wearing sleep clothes already. I did not want to go out and buy more cheese. I went and cut the moldy part off. I ate the pizza with the cheese. I felt fine. I guess it was okay.

Really, it tasted pretty good. But after I ate it I realized something. I forgot pineapples! I bought a can of pineapple chunks solely for this pizza and I totally forgot to add that!

Well, now I have pineapple and marinara sauce that I need to use up.

Shrimp Scampi Florentine

January 23, 2021 2:01 PM

Remember when I made spring rolls and basil chicken and bought so much mint that I didn't know what to do with it? Well, I looked up things to do with excess mint, and I came across mint pesto. The recipe actually calls for mint and parsley, but parsley is kinda gross, so I went all in on mint.

So, this mint pesto has been sitting in my freezer since Thanksgiving, and I finally have a use for it! My initial thought was to make some sort of pesto pasta, but since I had some leftover spinach and frozen shrimp available, I decided to make one of my go-to's, Shrimp Scampi Florentine.

If I have the time, you might have noticed that I like to write the recipe down in advance. If you're wondering, it's not a recipe book. It's just a journal. But since it's a lazy Saturday, I had even more time, so I went and reorganized my journal to make it easier to find the pages that have recipes. And by that I mean I numbered every page and made a table of contents at the end of the book.

And then I realized I already wrote this recipe down! And then I had another thought. Maybe I should just write down the recipes for all my go-to's. But on index cards because I have a lot of those and they work well for recipes. So I went and marked those recipes with a blue asterisk. There are more, but I'll get to those when I get to those.

I recently gave a lightning talk at work about my meal planning process, and now my coworkers are going to see this and think I'm even more insane than they already thought.

Anyway, I don't really love the mint pesto, but I still love this dish. Shrimp, tomatoes, spinach, pesto, and pasta. What a well balanced meal.