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.
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.
$30 a week
July 12, 2019 5:21 PM
I feel like I keep telling people about this $30 a week challenge that I really want to try, but keep failing at. Well, this past week was the first week in a while that I could actually cook, and so I tried the challenge again. And I did it! I spent $27.79 on food, and that's even including eating out once. And this "week" actually started Thursday night of last week, and went til today. So it's technically longer than a week.
Okay, so maybe this was cheating, but I had a bunch of frozen seafood already on me. Including crab legs, which I bought a month ago since they were on sale. It was a good thing I had them, plus romaine lettuce because that meant when I drove back from my family's place, I didn't have to buy groceries that same night.
And wow, romaine lettuce really does keep for a long time in the fridge. I'm pretty sure they were sitting there for a month, but they still seemed perfectly fine for eating this past week. I was able to make a few Caesar salads with shrimp (yup, I also had that in my freezer already). I considered buying croutons, but then I had this wonderful idea to just toast a bagel (that I did buy this week) and cut it up into little cubes. It turned out great, but I definitely need a break from romaine lettuce for a while.
Look, I had scallops already in my freezer too! But only scallop pieces, because I'm cheap like that. (Yep, this definitely feels like cheating) I looked up scallop recipes and decided to make Garlic Butter Scallop Bowls from Damn Delicious. (Technically, I used Budget Bytes's Cilantro Lime Rice recipe) I still don't quite understand the key to making good scallops, though the fact that I used the scallop bits and pieces probably didn't help. I really liked the flavor of them though. I wasn't as huge a fan of the pico de gallo. I feel like it had a little too much lime, so I'll have to look for a different recipe for that next time.
In trying to really stay under budget, I decided to make some shrimp burrito bowls, since I could utilize some of the unused pico de gallo, cilantro lime rice, and romaine lettuce. All I needed to buy specifically for this dish was a can of black beans. I used the shrimp and black bean parts of Budget Byte's Chili Lime Shrimp Bowls recipe. It was delicious.
Okay, not everything I made utilized impulse-bought seafood from the past. Of course I had to make some tacos too. I used Damn Delicious's Mexican Street Tacos recipe. Instead of using skirt steak, I actually found pre-cut beef at Aldi, which was also cheaper than their skirt steak, so win-win. I also used sweet onions instead of red onions because I think sweet onions are far superior.
So, I will be attempting to stay under $30 again next week. And maybe it'll feel less like cheating with less seafood already in freezer.
Fish Tacos
February 4, 2019 5:50 PM
Happy Chinese New Year! Today we celebrated by making tacos.
I've always thought Blue Apron was a huge waste of money. I have to pay $8+ for a meal that I need to prep and cook myself. I actually like going to the grocery store, and I don't like cutting vegetables, so why would I ever pay extra money to cut veggies?!
However, all of the Blue Apron recipes are available online for free! And they have a pretty great cookbook with useful pictures. My favorite of their recipes is Spiced Catfish Tacos with Roasted Sweet Potato and Coleslaw.
Except I use tilapia because even though I don't know how much catfish costs, I know it costs way more than tilapia.
Tacos are always delicious. I'll have another new year's post coming soon!
Shrimp Tacos
January 25, 2019 6:34 PM
Yeah, I wasn't kidding with my last post.
I don't impulse buy very often when I'm at the grocery store, but when I do, it's almost always seafood. And seafood goes on sale at least once a month. So I guess I impulse buy a lot. I got a frozen bag of shrimp the other day, and I had a single tomato in my fridge that needed to be used, so I decided to make Super Simple Shrimp Tacos from Budget Bytes.
I think the recipe is pretty fantastic on its own, but I had to modify it to fit what I had in the kitchen.
- I only cut up one tomato...because that's all I had.
- I used "Asian Chopped Salad" mix instead of an iceberg salad mix. Because I don't know when iceberg lettuce is ever the ideal vegetable to use for anything.
- I cooked a whole 1.5 lbs of shrimp. There is more than enough marinade for it.
- And I turned the sour cream into Lime Crema. With cilantro! That's what really takes it over the top.
