Dinner for 4
February 18, 2019 5:33 PM
I did some serious flailing around in the kitchen the other day. My mom and her friend are visiting me, and she last minute (okay technically I had more than a minute) asked me to make lunch for her. My sister was still at work, and unfortunately I didn't take any good pictures.
But hey, we have some pictures of dinner!
We made three different things: sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, and salmon. The potatoes were deep fried, but we didn't really follow a recipe.
I used the same brussels sprouts recipe as I did earlier this year. I think I'm going to completely change it up next time though and bake the brussels sprouts.
For the salmon, I did try a new recipe though: Hot Honey Salmon from How Sweet Eats. It was good, but not my favorite way to prepare salmon. I think I prefer the Citrus Salmon.
You know what happens when you cook for 4? You don't have as many leftovers.
Odds 'n Ends
February 16, 2019 10:15 AM
Somehow we seem to have both too many and not enough leftovers in the fridge. So, this past week had some quick meals and side dishes to accompany the leftovers.
Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter Sauce, Spinach, and Walnuts from Budget Bytes
Man what a long name for a recipe. It's pretty self explanatory though. Aldi had shrimp and crab ravioli so I decided to try it out with this recipe. It's good, but really not that seafood-y. We also threw chives in this. It was an incredibly easy meal to make, so it's good for a weeknight.
Chili Roasted Sweet Potatoes from Budget Bytes
Beth paired this with the cilantro lime drumsticks, and since I also had a couple of sweet potatoes I needed to use up, I figured I'd do the same thing. Roasted sweet potatoes are always delicious.
Roasted Heirloom Carrots with Feta, Truffle, and Lemon Zest from Skinnytaste
Except we didn't use truffle oil and I'm pretty sure those are just regular carrots. We just have a lot of carrots in the fridge since I bought them from Aldi, and you have to buy a whole bag of them.
This was surprisingly good. I think we'll roast more carrots tomorrow.
Honey Walnut Shrimp
February 15, 2019 4:10 PM
Also known as Mayonnaise Shrimp.
I know I've eaten this at Chinese restaurants plenty of times, but I never really got excited for it until my aunt decided to make it for Thanksgiving one year. Ever since then, it's become one of my family's most requested Thanksgiving dishes.
And this year my family had it for Chinese New Year. But my sister and I didn't get to go home so we had to make it for ourselves. Shrimp was on sale this week so I had to buy it!
We used this Walnut Shrimp recipe from The Woks of Life. It was delicious, but I think it could have used more breading though. It also only called for a pound of shrimp and it claimed to make 4 servings, but those must be some tiny servings. We made 1.5 lbs and I think that might have been enough for 3 people.
I'll definitely be making this again.
Drumsticks and Broccoli
February 11, 2019 9:00 AM
Chicken drumsticks were on sale at Aldi for $.69/lb so I wanted to make something using them.
Budget Bytes is always my go to place for recipes, so I looked up ones with drumsticks and I decided to make Cilantro Lime Chicken Drumsticks. We doubled the recipe since I bought a value pack that came with 12 pieces of chicken.
I think the recipe is great, but next time I'll marinate the chicken in a bowl instead of a bag. It's too much of a pain to try and scrape off the marinade inside a plastic bag. I only broiled it for 3 minutes, and next time I'll go with 4. Some of the drumsticks could have used a bit of crisping up on top.
And because I think vegetables are important, I also bought broccoli and roasted it, just like in this Chili Roasted Broccoli recipe. This is my absolute favorite way to prepare broccoli.
To be extra fancy, we added chives to the mashed potatoes.
Odds 'n Ends
February 10, 2019 8:50 AM
Just another post of three recipes that I'm lumping together for no apparent reason. All of these recipes are from Budget Bytes.
Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry
Remember that salad we had a while ago? Well we turned the rest of the cabbage into stir fry.
My mom bought me this huge 6 quart pan years ago, and I finally took it out of the box. Which was a good idea, because the first time I ever stir fried cabbage I spilled it everywhere since it barely fit in the pan.
Fluffy Garlic Herb Mashed Potatoes
Well, at least I think that's what recipe my sister used. I was feeling mentally drained after work on Friday, so she cooked this on her own.
Our mashed potatoes weren't really all that fluffy since they were only hand mashed. But I personally like it with chunks. I know my sister deviated from the recipe, but that was mostly because she didn't really measure everything.
Oh, and she added a whole head of roasted garlic.
German Potato Salad
And this is what I used the other half of the potatoes for.
I probably should have cut the potatoes before boiling them because I think they still had a bit of a crunch in the middle. Oh well, I've talked to people that eat potatoes raw so I figured it's okay.
If I make this again, I would cut the potatoes in half before boiling, and also use way more bacon than it calls for. I doubled the bacon, but it still felt like it could have used more.
