Hi! Remember me?
I have a post titled “anxiety and being nice to myself” in my drafts right now, but the post is empty.
So that’s a pretty good indication of how this past month has been going.
But really, it’s going great.
And sadly, that’s because this blog has taken a backseat to all the other awesome things going on…like teaching for fit4mom, and kiddo graduations, and becoming an auntie again, and, well, SO MANY things I couldn’t list them all. Needless to say, my attention has been scattered. But I’m here for now, wanting to share a recipe or two.
I used to meal plan so well, but our schedules are kinda bonkers with all the end of the year parties and whatnot that I’m basically letting our CSA and pantry run the show as far as dinners are concerned.
This BBQ chicken bowl has a base of wheatberries (from the CSA) and leaf lettuce, topped with bell peppers, red onion, cucumber, avocado, and cheddar cheese.
Plus chicken breasts that I cooked in the instant pot with BBQ sauce. You could use black or pinto beans instead to make it vegetarian.
And cilantro for the adult version.
I made a simple vinaigrette with olive oil, apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper, but you could use a ranch too if you were into that kind of thing.
Making shredded BBQ chicken is literally the easiest. I added a bunch of breasts to a greased instant pot insert, poured 1/4 cup BBQ sauce on top, added 1/4 cup water, and cooked it on high pressure for 25 minutes, letting the pressure release naturally. Shredding it couldn’t have been easier, as it basically fell apart with the lightest touch.
I deliberately made extra which I froze to use later (we were heading out of town for Santa Barbara) and a few weeks later I was so happy to have it on hand.
This time I made another, very similar, recipe. Only I tried a new (to me) dressing just for fun.
This dressing gets rave reviews in the blog world, but it was just okay to me.
It was good in the recipe, but I don’t think Id go out of my way to buy it again. The biggest negative was the amount in the bottle. I used 3/4 of it on this one salad. It was also way more liquidy than I was expecting. I guess that’s a sign that it doesn’t have a bunch of weird thickeners in it, but it caught me off guard as I poured it on (and was expecting a thick sauce). Anyway, the kids and Kyle all liked it, which is a positive because Kyle is not typcically a ranch person (on account of the dill).
This time the salad had sweet potatoes in lieu of the wheatberries.
But it still had leaf lettuce, and avocado.
The first version had a more southwestern/tex-mex chopped salad vibe going on, but this one was more like what I make on a daily basis.
You guys know my formula by now: greens + grain (carb) + fat + crunch
In this case that was leaf lettuce, sweet potatoes, avo, and pepitas. The combo of salty pumpkin seeds and roasted sweet potatoes is one of my all time faves. The chicken is a protein boosting bonus, but not necessarily a make or break ingred. You could just amp up the rest of the components to compensate if you wanted to keep things veg.
And for the record, my favorite ranch recipe is by Danielle Walker (in her Celebrations cookbook), which I actually do have on hand most of the time.
It’s basically mayo, coconut milk, a splash of lemon juice and some fresh herbs. Easy peasy.
Throw it all in a bowl and call it a day.
Add some crunchy tortilla chips on top and people will be fighting over this one.
