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.

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!