Recent Recipes Vol. 1

How do you approach meals during your week?

Are you a meal subscription box person? Do you buy a bunch of things that look fresh at the grocery store and hope for the best? Or do you plan an elaborate weekly menu, down to the last tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle of garlic?

Cooking is one of my greatest joys, so I try to incorporate it into my week as some stress relief and fun. Not to mention, it suits my budget muccchhhh better to cook at home often during the week.

I’ve developed a pretty simple system that works for me and my little family. (Me + Cameron + Wex, who usually talks me into a couple bites of vegetable scraps… he loves broccoli! Weird.)

Before we go grocery shopping on the weekend, I pick 3-4 recipes I want to try out that week. These will be dinners throughout the week, and I’ll try to make double batches of some, so that we can have leftovers for lunches. This is just the sweet spot for us, but do more or less depending on your household size and whether you need/want leftovers or not.

There is nothing better to me than a Sunday morning sit down with a cup of coffee where I leisurely page through my favorite cookbooks, search up some beloved recipe blogs, and check my inbox for any newsletters from The Kitchn or Bon Appetit. I’ll find three things that look good – bonus points if I can carry over ingredients from one meal to the next like a bunch of cilantro or some chicken thighs – and then I’m good to go.

I write down all the ingredients I need to get at the grocery store, add in weekly staples such as eggs, almond milk, and crackers, and then I’ve got my list and I’m ready to go.

This method allows us to have variety in our life through different foods, try new things, and not spend money eating out too often. I thought it would be fun to come on the blog every once in a while and share some recent recipes that we tried and loved!

If you follow me on Instagram, you know I’m constantly sharing some on my “food” highlight, but here will be a great place to drop the links for you, so that you can create these for your week.

Let me know if you’ll be adding any of these to the rotation for next week!

BBQ Chicken and Broccoli Slaw Bowls (With Garlic Bread)

This was so summery and flavorful. The slaw comes together in maybe 10-15 minutes, and the BBQ chicken was just dump in the pressure cooker and go. (Though I’m sure you could slow cook, too!) I followed this recipe for the chicken and ended up making another batch a couple days letter because we were obsessed. You could use some of the chicken for the bowls and then make sandwiches with it for lunches if you didn’t want to eat the exact same thing again!

Also – freezer garlic bread? And they all said AMEN.

Lemony Cucumber CousCous Salad

This was super easy to whip up and stayed fresh for days. All the ingredients were inexpensive, too! We had this on the side of some chili lime chicken that I like to make in the Instant Pot – another favorite and easy dish.

Spicy Chicken Lettuce Wraps (With White Rice)

These were almost as good as the Pei Wei version! Such a satisfying meal – and perfect for summer in my opinion. Whipped up some white rice on the side – which is cheap and easy to do, so a big thumbs up here!

Sesame Chicken (With White Rice)

Nothing was more cozy than homemade Chinese after a long day. This meal came together super quick because I did all the chopping the day before. (Sometimes for “meal prep”, I’ll chop veggies and such because I loathe chopping when I’m hungry. It just takes too dang long!) I also really liked it because I would have thought I’d need a bunch of fancy, authentic ingredients to make a dish like this, but it was really just common pantry items and fresh veggies.

Broccoli and Chickpea Lemon Pasta (added in ground turkey, too!)

This one felt like a more fun version of a bowl of noodles and it was really yummy, too. Chickpeas don’t do it for me in terms of protein or satiation, so I grabbed a pack of ground turkey and just cooked that on its own with some simple spices to add to the dish. Definitely a not sad desk lunch and 100% more fun with a good helping of parmesan.

Let me know what you’ve been making for dinner (or lunches!) recently that doesn’t totally suck to eat over and over again 🙂

X,

Cristina