Mostly Mexican Food
October 19, 2019 5:16 PM
I've been so busy at work that it's consumed my brain, and I haven't had a lot of mental capacity left over for really giving my cooking as much thought as I'd like. Which means I end up forgetting to take pictures of things. But, I looked at my phone, and it turns out I have enough pictures to write a post on some random things that I made over the past two weeks.
Chicken Fajitas - Budget Bytes
I had gone home to visit family for a week, in which I accompanied my mom in grocery shopping. She bought a ridiculous amount of vegetables that she wasn't going to be able to finish, so she gave me a whole bunch of stuff to take back to my place. Part of that was a lot of onions and bell peppers, so naturally, I had to make some fajitas. I've made these fajitas so many times, and they're always delicious.
Chili Rubbed Pulled Pork - Budget Bytes
Speaking of things wrapped in tortillas, I also made these pulled pork tacos. I don't have a picture of the initial batch of pulled pork, but I actually made it in non-taco form for my mom and her friend when they visited me. I also made cilantro lime rice (which you can kind of see in the tacos) and brussels sprouts and broccoli. Yes, there was a lot of flailing that day as I kept going back and forth between working and cooking.
Cilantro Lime Chicken Thighs - Damn Delicious
I see cilantro and lime together, and I'm like "YES. I WANT THAT." So what happens is I buy those things for tacos, and then I just end up making more Mexican food because Mexican food uses a lot of cilantro and lime. (At least the kind I like does) These chicken thighs were really good, though I think using the cast iron pan was more trouble than it was worth for this. Next time, I'll just stick to one of my normal pans.
Oh, and obviously, I need to have some sides too, so I cooked some sweet potatoes and veggies. I didn't really use a recipe for them. I just cut them up, drizzled olive oil, and sprinkled various spices on them.
Chorizo and Sweet Potato Enchiladas - Budget Bytes
Yeah! Even more stuff that I wrapped in a tortilla! I just really like tortillas, okay? But, the heading for this is totally a lie, because when I went to the store they were completely out of chorizo, so I had to settle for just "sausage" instead. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of enchiladas, but I had sweet potatoes, and I had been just roasting them so I wanted to do something different. This was good, but I think I just need to take a break from the Mexican food now.
Three Cheese Pizza
Yeah I know, this is totally random and why this post is only mostly Mexican. Hey, I had some pizza dough and pizza sauce in the freezer, so why not. I had cheddar, mozzarella, and parmesan, so that's why it's three-cheese. This wasn't bad, but I'm going to have to improve on my pizza-making game. I definitely put too much sauce compared to cheese.
Odds 'n Ends
October 6, 2019 1:44 PM
I had a really busy past couple of weeks, so much so that I didn't do any cooking. My body definitely was not happy with all the fast food I was putting in it, so I've been able to get back to cooking again. What I haven't really been doing is taking nice pictures, so I'll just show a few things I've cooked in the past few months that somehow haven't made their way onto the blog yet.
Tacos!
I rarely make ground beef tacos, since it's one of my least favorite taco meats, but it is easy. I used Budget Bytes' Taco Seasoning recipe which I think tastes way better than those pre-made packets.
Crispy Potatoes with Lemon Dill Tahini Dressing - Budget Bytes
I was really proud of myself for making this recipe, not because of how it tasted, but because I finally used and washed my cast iron skillet! The whole, having to re-season it was kind of intimidating to me, so I always had my sister wash it when she was staying with me. The potatoes were good, though!
Sweet Potato Tacos with Lime Crema - Budget Bytes
This is one of my go-to easy, vegetarian recipes that I use. Sweet potatoes as a taco filling work surprisingly well, but I think it's the lime crema that makes this recipe really good. I'm not a huge fan of sour cream, but if I mix lime, garlic, and some salt in it, it's delicious.
Candied Bacon
I had been wanting to make candied bacon for a while, and since I had a few slices of bacon leftover from some other recipe, I figured I'd give it a try. It was delicious and super easy to make. I think I'm always going to candy my bacon from now on.
Pasta, Pizza, and Dumplings
September 15, 2019 12:27 PM
I don't have anything exciting to say in my opening sentence of this post, but hey, look at my fancy breakfast I made last Sunday! My arugula salad was really good.
I went to a diner for lunch that day, and I ate pancakes, so I really had breakfast twice in one day, which is way too much breakfast for one day.
One Pot Roasted Red Pepper Pasta - Budget Bytes
So I had some cream cheese that was sitting in the fridge for who knows how long, and when I went to use it, I saw a piece of mold! But there was still a lot of cream cheese in that block, and I really didn't want to throw it all away (plus I was going to eat a bagel), so I did some googling to see if I could salvage the cream cheese, and I got...mostly bad news. But this one random person said it would be fine if I just cut off the chunk around the mold, so that's what I did! And that was two weeks ago, so I think it was fine.
Anyway, I bring that up because I felt like I really needed to use up all my cream cheese quickly after that. And this pasta optionally takes cream cheese. Turns out I used almost all the cream cheese on my bagels, so I barely had any left for this pasta. But that's okay, it still turned out really well. I cut the recipe in half (except for the diced tomatoes, because half a can of diced tomatoes is kind of useless), and it made enough for five meals. I usually hate leftover pasta, but this time the leftovers actually tasted decent.
Bacon and Caramelized Pineapple Pizza - Budget Bytes
I had the most random things in my fridge: canned pineapple, bacon, arugula, jarred red peppers, shredded cheese, green onions. After thinking about what else I can do with my much too large supply of arugula, I figured pizza would be good. All I needed to buy was pizza dough!
But wait, that pizza doesn't have arugula. Yeah, so I was looking up pizza recipes mostly because I wanted some inspiration, and I saw this recipe for bacon and pineapple pizza. And I had bacon and pineapple, so I thought this was perfect. It tasted really good, but I need to get better at dealing with pizza dough. I don't think I quite understand how to form it in that nice circle shape.
Oh, don't worry, I used the arugula in my own Tomato, Red Pepper, and Arugula White Pizza.
Sweet Chili Charred Brussels Sprouts - Love & Lemons Cookbook
I don't have a link to this recipe since I got it from a cookbook. The recipe was actually for broccolini, but brussels sprouts were on sale at Aldi. I really like the taste of the sauce that was used, which consisted of some tamari, rice vinegar, srirachi, garlic, and sugar. I accidentally overcooked it a bit though, by leaving it in the oven for 20 minutes. I might use the sauce in a stir-fry later.
Pan Fried Dumplings - Damn Delicious
I was down to my last two bags of emergency dumplings, so I wanted to make some more. I normally just throw whatever I feel like in my dumplings, but I figured I'd try a recipe this time. This was a pretty typical dumpling recipe, but I really didn't want to buy zucchini or carrot, so I only used cabbage and green onion. Tasted decent enough, but I don't think I'll use it again. I thought the texture was a little weird.
But hey, I have ten freezer dumpling meals now!
Salads, burgers, and shrimp toast
September 6, 2019 6:19 PM
This past weekend was Labor Day which meant three day weekend, which meant four day workweek, and you'd think that it would be easy to get through, but I feel like I need to catch up on sleep again. I was so busy during the week that I didn't wash dishes for a whole three days, and you can imagine how gross that got.
I also somehow ended up with so much food in my fridge, so I've really been trying to eat all my leftovers. But, on to what I cooked this week.
Sun Dried Tomato, Kale, and White Bean Skillet - Budget Bytes
Remember how I made kale salad last week? Well I still had half that bag of kale left. So, I needed to do something with it, and I wanted to actually cook the kale this time. I don't know what it is, but I still haven't quite mastered the art of making salad. I think salads that I've gotten from restaurants are delicious, but my homemade salads are never quite fulfilling enough.
So, I made this kale skillet. It was alright, certainly better than the salad. The recipe said to saute the kale for 3-5 minutes which I think is way too long. Just a minute should be good enough. I really am sick of eating kale at this point though. I added some shrimp to this for one of my meals, which made it a lot more satisfying.
Drunken Aussie Beef Burgers - Cafe Delites
I might be bad at making salad, but I think I've got burgers down pretty well. I love burgers, but I'm almost always disappointed when I order one from a restaurant. They never have enough flavor. It's just cooked ground beef, and I'd like that beef to be transformed more.
I've had burgers on my to-make list for a while, and I figured it was appropriate to make them on Labor Day. This Drunken Aussie burger recipe had a lot of great reviews, so I figured I'd try it. And like every burger I've ever made, it was delicious. But I actually think that was mainly because of all the other toppings, and not the burger patty itself, which was a little on the bland side. Adding the beer helped, but it still felt like it was missing something. I think adding an egg in the ground beef mixture would have made it easier for the patty to stick together.
The recipe also said to use two different pans, which seemed excessive to me. I cooked all of it in the same pan in this order: bacon, onion, (wipe pan), egg, burgers. I'm happy with how it all turned out, but I don't think I'll be using this recipe again.
But hey, check out this salad that I added on the side! Since the burger called for arugula, I bought a (way too large) box of it, and I used it in a side salad as well. And I know I said I'm bad at making salads, but my "Arugula Strawberry Sun-Dried Tomato Salad with Balsamic Dressing" was decent.
Cajun Shrimp Toast - Damn Delicious
Finally, I'm gonna end with this Cajun Shrimp Toast, which is another recipe that was on my to-make list for a while. This was also delicious, and I'm definitely making this again. I think it would be great as an appetizer during Christmas or some sports watching party. I don't remember exactly how many pieces of toast this yielded, but I ate more than half of them in one sitting.
Poke Party
September 2, 2019 10:30 AM
This is from over a month ago, but I wanted to make a post out of it, because it's poke, and poke is always great.
So the main reason that I broke my $30 a week challenge was because I saw that sashimi grade salmon was on sale at my local grocery store for $6.99/lb. Which is crazy! They normally don't sell regular salmon for that cheap. (I also bought crab legs. And two pounds of shrimp. You can guess how much that cost.) Of course the catch is that it only comes in these huge 2+ lb slabs, but whatever.
My cousins and sister were visiting for the weekend, so I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to make poke again. (We also rolled up some sushi! But I didn't take any pictures of that)
Yeah, we may have gone a little overboard with the number of ingredients. But it was delicious. Some tips that we'll keep in mind to make the poke better next time:
- Mix the fish and the sauce together, but don't bother mixing the sauce with any of the other ingredients. It becomes a little too overpowering.
- Err on the side of having too much rice. We cooked three cups for five people, which was not enough.
- Two pounds of fish is enough to make poke for six people.
Poke is so good.
More about the blog...