Stir Fried Veggies and Chicken
February 23, 2019 6:26 AM
Somehow in all our cooking, I feel like we have too much food and not enough food at the same time. We're just always running out of vegetables! I am very adamant about having vegetables in every meal I cook. I can leave out meat, or I can leave out a starchy element, but I need vegetables. And I found myself going to the grocery store almost every day just because I needed more veggies.
So I decided to subscribe to a service that delivers produce on a regular basis. I kept seeing ads for Misfits Market on Facebook, and I wanted to give it a try. My first box contained the above produce and at full price, it's $23.50. This is what their site says:
We ship fresh, imperfect produce for up to 50% less than what you pay in stores.
I'll say this. The produce is probably better looking than what I get at Aldi, but definitely not cheaper. But then again, the Misfits Market produce is organic, and I never look at the organic section in Aldi.
But, on to the meal I cooked!
Since I had an eggplant, I needed an eggplant recipe. The first idea that came to my mind was to stir fry it, so I checked The Woks of Life and I saw Stir-fried Eggplant, Potatoes, and Peppers. I had some potatoes in my box of produce and some bell peppers in the fridge so that was perfect.
I always think of stir fry as a really easy method of cooking, but this was kind of complicated, with the putting things in the wok and taking them out, and putting them back in later.
And just because it is nice to have meat in my meals, I also made Thai Peanut Chicken from Budget Bytes. Chicken drumsticks are still on sale at Aldi! We added more fish sauce to the marinade and also upped the amount of soy sauce.
It was a lot more effort than I wanted to put in for a weeknight meal, but it was delicious.
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.
Leftovers and Chicken
January 28, 2019 4:31 PM
I had a lot of rice in the fridge with no protein to go with it, and I also had chicken in the freezer.
I made Sweet and Spicy Glazed Chicken Thighs from Budget Bytes. It was super easy to make, and it tasted pretty good, but I thought it was missing something: fish sauce. That would have made it so much better.
Odds 'n Ends
January 26, 2019 3:02 PM
Because not every meal has a story. At least not one I can remember.
Sheet Pan Greek Chicken and Vegetables from Budget Bytes
Can't remember all the things I changed in this recipe, but I know I used cilantro instead of parsley.
Shrimp Scampi Florentine from All Recipes
The shrimp in the pan wasn't as aesthetically pleasing, so we only took one type of photo. This is probably my favorite recipe from All Recipes, so I might make a full post about it in the future.
Spanish Chickpeas and Rice from Budget Bytes
We made this the other day since my sister mentioned really wanting some Spanish rice. As you can see in the photos, I replaced the artichokes with green bell peppers because that's what I had on hand. And I used chicken broth instead of vegetable.
And yes, everything in this post is garnished with cilantro.