Foodie Friday: This Week's Winners!

 

This week, instead of sharing a recipe with you, I want to share with you some links to recipes/places I’ve loved so you can love them too!

As I told you a couple of days ago, this week I (loosely) followed the Skinnytaste meal plan released a couple of Fridays ago. I am excited to tell you we had some winners from this plan, and even though I linked to a few of them Wednesday, I want to tell you specifically what I liked about them – and anything I changed.

Meal Prep Breakfast Taco Scramble – First of all, this was a double-win in our house. We both LOVED IT. If you are not a morning person, you absolutely need to make this ahead, because the potato portion takes close to an hour to bake, and if you’re like me, no productive life is lived before breakfast, so prepping and THEN waiting an hour is not a good decision. Also using knives this early…not a good decision. But I made it one evening, portioned it out, and then BOOM! Reheat and eat.

I did make a few adjustments to this one. I used my own, homemade seasoning salt. I used mozzarella cheese instead of the Mexican blend, simply because it’s what I had on hand, and I didn’t want to spend more money on different cheese. I also used a whole bell pepper because it’s an easy way to increase veggie intake. I also make my own taco seasoning in bulk, so I used that in place of her outlined ingredients that are essentially the same thing. This was so good and so filling.

One Pot Chicken Fajita Pasta – Another winner! I really love one-pot meals because they are so much less cleanup. (Full disclosure: Ryan does dishes here, so it’s not my own mess, but I try to be mindful of the mess he will have after dinner!) It wasn’t that time-consuming to make, it was flavorful, and it was filling!

I’ve been buying chickpea pasta at Aldi, and I like it. I can’t tell the difference in flavor from regular pasta, and it doesn’t leave me feeling as heavy as regular pasta.

Shrimp and Andouille Sheet Pan Dinner  - Know what else I like? Sheet pan dinners. See above for the reason. 😊 This one came together pretty quickly, but I did make some modifications along the way that probably helped the time factor.

I used smaller, deveined shrimp – because we had some in the freezer. But I always buy it deveined and without the tails because I do not care to mess with shrimp to any further extent. I did not use Creole seasoning, because we aren’t really into it. I just used my homemade seasoned salt. I used a bag of frozen broccoli, because I do not care to spend the time to cut up a head of it. I used a package of chicken sausage, because it’s what we had in the freezer. No cayenne, either. 😊 And I served it with the crispy potatoes featured next.

Roasted Baby Potatoes – Ryan raved about this one! I took everything in the ingredient list, threw it in a gallon plastic bag and shook it up to get the potatoes good and coated, and then I tossed it all on a sheet pan with parchment paper to cook it. Worked like a charm.

Air Fryer Fish Sticks – I am just learning to be a fish lover. And so far, the only fish I truly like is tilapia. But it’s a fragile little fish, so I purchased cod for this one. I can handle cod. It’s not my favorite, but it was certainly easier to handle for coating. I liked the breading and had ALMOST enough to coat all the fish. (I just ate the leftover pieces plain and made sure Ryan got all the good parts.)

We have an air fryer feature on our oven, so I just put the fish sticks in the air fryer basket we have for the oven and didn’t need to shake or turn them mid-fry. That helped. I think this might get messy otherwise. I really liked the tartar sauce. Neither of us care for sweet pickles, so I used my homemade dill pickles (chopped up) for the tartar sauce. The breading was really good. And it definitely tasted better fresh than warmed over. Soggy breadcrumbs are not the best. Also, this one does take more effort than I sometimes like to put into dinner. But it was fun and tasty.

Coleslaw – I have shared about her coleslaw recipe before. It really was perfect with the fish sticks. As a reminder, I buy the premade cabbage/carrot mix and just make my own dressing according to her recipe.

Crock Pot Pork Roast – I also dearly love a good slow cooker recipe, because there are days when there simply isn’t time to cook at mealtime. I made this one earlier this week when we had a super busy night. The minute we walked in the door after we finished all our activities, it was hot and ready to go! I did not do the polenta part of this recipe. I don’t even know enough about polenta to know if I like it. But I know I like everything else in here! (I did switch out the vinegar: used white instead of balsamic.) It was so very flavorful.

Fall Brussels Sprout Salad with Apples – I never ate Brussels sprouts until I was well into adulthood. I like them roasted and raw. I can’t handle them steamed from a frozen state. Too slimy for me. But this recipe was really good! I did use Feta instead of Blue cheese. It’s what we had on hand. I was able to make this one super quickly, and it paired well with the pork roast. 

Lots of goodness in the kitchen this week. And let me also give a quick shout out to a latte I had on the road this week. I traveled up to Albion for a workshop, and on the way home, I was getting sleepy, so I stopped at Busco Beans in Churubusco. WHOA. I had a latte made with almond milk and sugar free s’more syrup. SO GOOD. And the people in there were so sweet. I talked to them for a bit and thanked them for being open past 2 p.m. when most coffee shops close. If you are in the area, you should check them out! Sweet little place!