I love short weeks! This one flew by not only because Monday was a holiday but also because I am leaving (have left) to go to stay with my parents for the end of the week and weekend. Low fuss cooking and leftovers were the name of the game.
Backing up to Saturday (of the Memorial weekend) we had turkey burgers with a cauliflower salad.
His was on sourdough, mine was on Udi’s GF bread. His had gouda, mine had Daiya. Both had lots of BBQ sauce and romaine.
But the star of the show (for me) was the cauli salad. It was so so good. I think adding a protein to it (white beans or chickpeas, perhaps?) would make it a full meal. No burger necessary. P liked the burger, but not the daiya (daiya is allergy friendly because it is made with coconut and tapioca – no nuts, soy, gluten or dairy!). Still, he wasn’t into it. I can’t blame him. It would be a weird thing to try for the first time. But it melts! I confess I don’t eat it much anymore – I really try to stick to whole foods that aren’t processed, but it’s yummy every once in a while.
Ok, let’s get back to the salad recipe. It was based on this recipe which I found from bouncing around the inter webs. And of course I made some tweaks per usual.
First off, I’m really obsessed with this new freezer item from TJs (grilled cauliflower). It makes me want to eat cauliflower for every meal. I used the whole bag for this recipe and while it definitely yielded more than we needed, I ended up polishing off the leftovers myself so nothing remained behind.
Second thing to mention are the changes I made. I ditched the parmesan (which would have been great, I’m sure, but I didn’t want dairy in the salad). I also added the slivered almonds after P got his portion so he could try it too (he was meh on the tangy dressing).
I used a whole lemon (from the garden) for the dressing which added lots of extra flavor and chose garlic infused olive oil instead of shallots and plain olive oil.
Super tasty.
On Sunday, Kyle grilled.
This meal was incredibly last minute and yet, it turned out so so good.
We literally decided what to make in the parking lot of the market on the way home from a park date that was already encroaching on dinner time. Kyle grabbed a family pack of organic free range chicken and I rubbed it with oil, salt and pepper (nothing fancy – no time). He grilled it while P and I picked stuff from the garden for a salad.
The kale is just popping up, so we paired it with the already bonkers chard. Then added some organic strawberries and avo. In addition to the balsamic glaze drizzled on top, I ended up using some leftover avo dressing from my lunch earlier that day too. It was basically avo/oil/lemon juice. So the salad got lots of lubrication. Mmmmm…
P and I shared this breast. And of course he dominated the strawberries like whoa.
Our Memorial Monday was packed but still mellow – the perfect combo. We went to a baseball game and right after we got home we walked over to our neighbors house for a paella feast.
I had three servings of the paella, which was LEGIT (our neighbors lived in Spain previously).
I brought this watermelon, feta, basil salad. [I also brought food for P since we weren’t sure about the broth used in the paella.] Our neighbors’ kids are SO AWESOME. They are just a bit older and love P. And he’s obsessed with them. It’s a delightful relationship to watch because they are so great with him – patient and kind and encouraging while playing with him. We have a park just behind our house and they are always there so he sees them frequently and I suspect this summer will bring us all even closer.
On Tuesday I made a chicken bake, which included stuff that was on sale this week (organic peaches) or already in the fridge/freezer (organic chicken), plus basil from the garden and tricolored quinoa from pantry.
I made up the recipe and was worried about how it would work adding uncooked quinoa to a baking dish, but it was good and turned out good (maybe a little too liquid-y, but better than too dry).
Peach Basil and Chicken Bake with Quinoa [gluten free, dairy free, nut free, soy free]
Ingredients:
- 2 bone-in chicken breasts
- 2-3 peaches
- handful fresh basil
- 3/4 cup quinoa + 1 1/4 cup* water (or other liquid – i.e. broth – if desired)
- 3 tbsp garlic infused olive oil, divided
- salt and pepper
Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease baking dish with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Add chicken breasts and arrange quinoa and peaches around them. Grease breasts with remaining olive oil and rip basil leaves up and scatter evenly throughout the dish.
Add water and then salt and pepper generously.
Bake for 40 minutes covered in foil. [At this point, it should be ready to serve, but I wanted to be sure the quinoa was done so I turned the oven off but left it in the still warm oven for 2 hours. It was still steamy when I took the foil off several hours later, but if you’re worried about food safety, this probably isn’t something I should reveal that I did on the internet.]
*I adjusted the liquid amount in the recipe (reduced) because the quinoa was a little sloshier than I would have liked. The peaches and chicken breasts release liquids when cooked that made the amount of water I added excessive. Use the amount listed here and it will be perfect.
I actually meant to add goat cheese to our portion afterwards but forgot! This was a great dish that all of us enjoyed. The texture of the peaches seemed to weird P out, but he ate the rest. The chicken was literally falling off the bone from steaming in the oven for so long after baking.
Delish. I’d make again, for sure. Especially because P is back into chicken (of course he is).
Wednesday was market, but Kyle wasn’t able to make it, so I just went with the kids and came home to eat dinner.
I had still prepped our picnic fare in advance though, so we had the same thing I was planning on bringing to market – BBQ pulled pork and a quinoa corn salad.
This TJs BBQ sauce has no allergens and is safe for P to eat. He shared the pork with us which was HUGE sine he is usually super against any seasoning and flavoring on his food. He likes unseasoned stuff mostly, especially meat, which is likely due to the fact that I don’t trust spices/seasonings/etc for contamination risk. But I’ve been testing things more lately so he can more easily share our meals (without portions set aside before being seasoned) and thus encouraging him to expand his palate. It’s been going well, actually.
He even ate this quinoa salad (lots!!) which had a mayo/lime juice/parsley sauce on it.
Even cooler was that he ate it BY HIMSELF! With a spoon! On his own! So I could actually eat my own meal alongside him. Gah! Such exciting steps. 🙂
A very lovely family dinner.
And now I’m signing off for the weekend to start now.
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