flailing in my kitchen v3.1
How can I be sad when I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
I had a little nub of cream cheese in my fridge, so I was looking for recipes that use cream cheese. I saw this One Pot Creamy Pesto Chicken Pasta on Budget Bytes (which I may or may not have made in the past. I don't know. I've made a lot of pasta recipes). This recipe called for 3 oz of cream cheese and I only really had one. Oh well, I'm not buying more cream cheese. I just need to use up this nub.
So I'm reading the recipe, and this is what I see in the description:
This Creamy Pesto Chicken Pasta comes together in about 25 minutes, is super luscious and creamy, and uses just a few simple ingredients. ;)
25 minutes? Really? Well Beth, I'm testing this out now. I didn't bother reading the recipe in advance, so I'm going in blind.
It ended up taking 42 minutes total. I guess I wasn't being super efficient. I cut up the garlic and chicken before I turned the heat on the stove, and I probably could have saved time by turning it on, then cutting things up. It also took me 10 minutes to cook the pasta when the recipe calls for 8. And I added a tomato since I had one.
But this recipe really was easy to make. It was a very chill meal-making time for me, and I think I could get it done in 30 minutes next time. Overall, it's a great pasta recipe. 5/5.
If you read the table in my last post closely, you'll notice that I had mac n cheese a few times. As you know, I made a gigantic batch of mac n cheese last Thanksgiving and I still have way too many frozen mac n cheese blocks sitting in a bag. So I decided to fry up some more of these.
I reread my old fried mac n cheese post, and I had suggested to myself to dip the blocks in flour before dipping them in egg. So I tried that this time. Did it make a difference? I have no idea.
But you know what? This deep frying experience was...much less flail-y than I expected it to be. Maybe deep frying food isn't that scary. I just had to not turn the heat up so much. That must be the cause of so much of my cooking anxiety growing up. My mom always insisted on everything being cooked on high heat, but you know what that resulted in? Flying pieces of cabbage and a huge oil burn on my leg.
But not this time. This went surprisingly well.
I'm getting bored with calling these posts "Meal Plan". It's really a weekly review, but I didn't want to call it that either. At one point I thought of making the tag line of this blog "thoughts on food", so I'm trying something like that. I was also going to append to that to give it a ridiculously long title, but I guess that's what subheaders are for.
So to start off, my whiteboard pic is back, and completely unedited!
Hummus had already been on my to-make list for a while, but when I thought about the tomatoes that I didn't have a use for, I figured I could turn my hummus snack idea into a meal and make Mediterranean Hummus Bowls. That also used up onions.
Like I said earlier, I made Beef and Pineapple Enchiladas so I could use up some corn tortillas, scallions, and the rest of my pineapple chunks. Plus that worked really well with the hummus bowls since I could use half the ground beef for each dish.
See that extra can in the back that's covered? Those are more chickpeas. You can never be too well-stocked on chickpeas. (Especially because I needed both of those cans this week) But you know what Aldi was missing? Tomato paste! I've never seen tomato paste run out at Aldi!
So I was just going to cut my losses and deal with having less tomato paste than my enchiladas called for (which honestly, would have been fine) but as I saw it snowing on Sunday I thought "This is perfect grocery shopping weather!" (because it's way less crowded.)
And you know what's even more perfect? Buying ice cream when it's snowing. Because I can walk at whatever pace I want and know it won't melt. (Also because it's always a good time to buy ice cream.)
So I'm standing in the gigantic ice cream aisle and I come to the same conclusion that I do every time I go to Giant Eagle: Giant Eagle has the WORST ice cream selection. It makes me angry. Every. Single. Time.
WHY are there SO many varieties of vanilla ice cream?! Turkey Hill has "Original Vanilla", "French Vanilla", "Vanilla Bean", and even "Homemade Vanilla"! (not pictured because there's not enough space in the picture to even capture the insanity) Turkey Hill, I know that you did not make that vanilla ice cream in a home. Don't give me that false advertising.
If one of my close friends read this, he would say "Meyling, you're just mad they don't have coffee ice cream." And he would be right. I am mad at Giant Eagle's lack of coffee ice cream. Coffee is a staple. You can't tell me you need four varieties of vanilla, but you don't need coffee.
You're probably wondering, did you even buy any ice cream? Well, I sorta did.
Breyer's was on sale so I settled for their "Frozen Dairy Dessert" that we all know is not real ice cream. I also tried a so-ridiculously-expensive-that-I-don't-want-to-say-how-much-it-was Leona's ice cream sandwich that was labeled "Chai Tea/Coffee". I still don't know if it was the ice cream that was supposedly coffee-flavored or the cookie.
Okay. Ice cream rant over. Here's what I ate this past week.
| Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday | Bagel | Shrimp Scampi Florentine | Hummus Bowl |
| Sunday | Bagel | Enchiladas | Rice w/ 腊肉 & Kimchi |
| Monday | Ramen Eggs | Rice w/ 腊肉 & Kimchi | Hummus Bowl |
| Tuesday | Fried Eggs w/ Rice | Enchiladas | Mac n Cheese |
| Wednesday | Fried Eggs w/ Rice | Hummus Bowl | Rice w/ Beef Jerky & Kimchi |
| Thursday | Mac n Cheese | Enchiladas | Hummus Bowl |
| Friday | Hummus w/ Carrots | Rice w/ Beef Jerky & Kimchi | Takeout: Dim Sum |
I don't think I'll ever order from that dim sum place again. I miss real dim sum. When we get back to a normal, COVID-19-free world, that's the first thing I'm eating.
A few weeks ago I gave a lightning talk at work. This is largely based off my Meal Plan post from before the holidays.
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.
