This Week’s Dinners

This week I made two excellent meals:

Lasagna with salad: Made basic lasagna with ground turkey and sauted onions. Used store bought sauce, but grated cheese ourselves. Simple, easy, and made enough for two dinners and a lunch. Made a big salad using pre-washed greens, and my home-made dressing (garlic, oil, lemon juice, s&p, mustard, honey).

Chicken Teriyaki: This was mega cheating (in terms of the teriyaki) but it was still ridiculously good. I had a package of chicken thighs which I marinated in half a bottle of Whole Foods 365 Organic Teriyaki Sauce in an oven-ready dish. While that was marinating, I put on a pot of brown rice, water, and chicken bouillon (ever since I made rice once with chicken stock I almost never make it plain; it’s so tasty this way!). When the oven was done pre-heating, I put the chicken, covered, in at 375 for 40 minutes (and with my new oven in my new home, 375 actually means 375. Amazing.). Some people don’t put marinate in with the meat, but I like my chicken tender and juicy, so I leave it all in. I hate dry chicken and I never make it.

While the rice and chicken were cooking, I installed my knife magnet rack ($14.99 at IKEA and I love it to death) and then prepped a head of broccoli for steaming. One problem, of course: We don’t own a steamer. So instead, I filled a pot with about an inch of water, put in a heart-shaped metal cookie cutter, put a bowl on top of the cookie cutter, and put the broccoli on that, and covered it! It sounds crazy, but it worked! I waited until we were about ten minutes from eating dinner, then turned the broccoli pot on high and set the kitchen timer for five minutes. It came out bright green and al dente. Yum. I served it with a butter/garlic/oil sauce, which was literally just a mug with two tablespoons of olive oil, one tablespoon of butter, two crushed garlic cloves, and some s&p–all of it microwaved for 30 seconds (for the butter to melt) and then just stirred some. It makes for delicious drizzling.

All of this made for two dinners and about one and a half lunches. YUM. I’ll definitely be making the chicken teriyaki again.

Thanksgiving 2009

This is what we ate at my house on Thanksgiving this year:

olives, hummus, and carrot & celery sticks as an appetizer

Turkey Lurkey (turkey basted with orange juice and white wine, stuffed with bread, dates, dried figs, dried apricots, dried applies, walnuts, and more orange juice & white wine)

gravy, obviously, as well as extra stuffing

a humongous fresh salad with lemon juice, mustard, olive oil, garlic, salt & pepper

braised brussel sprouts & chestnuts (a new dish this year and surprisingly delish!)

sweet potato pudding (with pineapples and fluff)

pecan pie with homemade whipped cream

Easy Summer Dinner

Made an easy summer dinner tonight:

Cucumber Salad: One cucumber, sliced thinly. Dressed with a light vinegar (I used rice and cider), salt & pepper, dill, a dash of olive oil, and about a tablespoon of sugar. Delish.

Broiled shrimp: One pound cooked shrimp at $4.99/pound. Tossed with Old Bay Seasoning, paprika, dill, olive oil, and salt & pepper. Let it sit for a few minutes while I let the oven get to broil. Put it all in a shallow baking dish, broiled for about 10 minutes (until starting to char at the edges). This actually wound up being too much for me with everything else, but if I’d had fewer other things, it would’ve been fine. As it was, I have some for lunch tomorrow.

I also cut a few pieces of quality bread and spread them with butter. Then I cut up a quarter of a watermelon. About half went for tomorrow’s lunch. But the other half was quickly gobbled up. Watermelon is so delicious!

Yay for summer!

ps. For the curious, tomorrow’s lunch will be: Watermelon, shrimp, bread, and maybe some boiled corn on the cob.