Afternoon of Cooking

I spent part of this afternoon doing some meal prep for the week. Let’s be honest…I have not made the best food choices lately (Can you say Easter Candy!). I needed to do some prep for this week to get back into some good habits.

I started with making the Santa Fe Scramble for the second time, so I would have breakfast for the week. This time I added tomatoes and will top with a little cheese and some kind of hot sauce each day. I could even put them over toast or in wrap depending on how I feel in the morning. I’m actually excited to eat breakfast this week and that’s been tough lately!

Next up is a recipe that is not from Pioneer Woman. We recently had a Lunch and Learn at work where a nutritionist came in to speak and we got some new recipes to try. This chicken salad with whole wheat pita chips is a healthy take on chicken salad because it uses Greek yogurt instead of mayo. I love it because it’s nice and light with a splash of lemon juice and dill. There is also a nice crunch from the cucumber that helps make it so tasty. The homemade pita chips are sprinkled with garlic powder and Italian seasoning. So much better than store bought!

Lastly, was prep for dinner tonight. Sweet and Sour Meatballs where on the menu, so I had to make Pioneer Woman’s Freezer Meatballs recipe. This was a challenge! The first pan I used…..the meatballs stuck to the bottom. The second pan I used…..the meatballs weren’t getting done in the middle. This could have been a complete disaster. I did get enough meatballs to make the Sweet and Sour Meatballs for dinner. The rest are currently in my freezer waiting to be cooked. Plan C….I’m baking them in the oven. I’ll let you know how that works out.

After all the craziness, this seemed to turn out well. My sauce didn’t thicken the way it should (What a surprise!!). I never thought to put meatballs over rice, but this works because of the Asian flavors in the dish. We could definitely eat this again. It’s different than a regular stir fry or meatball dish and I like that. If I already had the meatballs made, it would work as an easy weeknight meal. I’d also love to try to add some veggies to it to round out the dish.

More good food on the way! Stay tuned!

Vegetable Stir-fry

I am not a vegetarian. NOT. EVEN. CLOSE. With that being said, I love vegetables of all types. I just like some kind of meat to go with them. With half our meat in other people’s freezers, this was a simple choice for tonight. What I didn’t know when I planned this was that I’d be exhausted tonight too. Have you ever had one of those nights where you just can’t fall asleep?!?! This was me last night and I end up getting mad that I can’t go to sleep. Oh well.

I love stir-fry and this recipe does not disappoint! The array of vegetables are a perfect combination of things I enjoy. The ginger give is that bite that makes stir fry oh so good and the sriracha gives it the right amount of heat. I really thought the sauce wouldn’t be enough for the amount of veggies I had, but it was perfect. We chose to put it over noodles instead of rice, but I think we would have been happy either way.

There are a number of things that I love about this recipe.

1. Super Easy
2. Future weeknight meal
3. Easily adaptable (I could add meat!)
4. One of the healthier meals I’ve made so far

Click here to try this recipe at home!

Chinese Food at Home

We love our Chinese Food in this house! Of course, making our own seemed like a great idea when I was planning meals out for the week. I was not thinking about how time consuming this could be or the fact that it’s Thursday and there’s homework to be done, baths, and a need for a reasonable bedtime. We powered through and got everything done, but I’ve learned one thing….read the whole recipe before choosing it!

Tonight’s menu: Orange Chicken with Pineapple Fried Rice

I was not 100% prepared for this tonight. It didn’t occur to me that I would be frying the chicken and I don’t own a thermometer to make sure the oil is hot enough. Lesson learned. So, instead of completely screwing up that whole process by guessing, I adapted the recipe. I made the chicken in a skillet and added it to the sauce. Still delicious, but not what Ree intended.

The other thing about tonight’s meal….it was labor intensive and had a lot of things going on. It didn’t help that I was making two different recipes at the same time or that I have one kid in the background continuously yelling, “I’m bored!” But this is parenting and cooking with kids, so we roll with it. My kitchen is a disaster and I thankfully have a husband who is willing to clean up my mess (even though I offered to do it!)

Good news from tonight – the sauce thickened!! You have no idea how excited I was when this worked tonight!

The bad news – I burnt the garlic, ginger, and green onion for the rice. I was not excited about this, but the pan was obviously too hot from the pineapple. Thankfully I had plenty more of these ingredients and I started over.

Overall, I think the meal was great, tasted like having Chinese Food, and ended up being a little healthier than expected. I would like to try it again once I get this whole frying thing figured out.

Click Here for the Orange Chicken Recipe and click Here for the Pineapple Fried Rice.

Note: Ree’s recipe for the rice is actually Pork Chops with Pineapple Fried Rice, but the cookbook recommended the rice as a side for the Orange Chicken so I paired them together.