So, you'd think I'd make up for it Friday night by making something really good for dinner, right? Uh, no. Apparently not. Sigh.
I got home Friday evening and realized I had some stuff in the fridge I should use up before going grocery shopping again Saturday morning. Okay... so dinner would be a bit of a hodge-podge but it should still be good, right? Uh, no. Apparently not. Sigh.
I had some okra I'd bought the weekend before at the Farmer's market. The okra still looked good so I sliced them down the center and roasted them for about 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven. So far, so good.
I also had some parsnips I'd recently purchased. Never had parsnips before but changing the way we eat has made me more open to trying new things. So I found plenty of easy recipes for roasting parsnips and, since I was already roasting the okra, easy peasy. Into the oven they went.
I still had some corn on the cob from the Farmer's Market, too. Found a great way to make corn on the cob on Pinterest not too long ago. You microwave it 4 minutes for each ear of corn - 12 minutes total for the 3 ears I was cooking. When it's done and still hot, you cut off the bottom, hold it by the top, shake the ear and the corn falls out of the shucks without any silk at all. It's impressive. Try it, if you haven't. :) So... the corn was good.
Sweet hubby loves pasta and I'd made some not-so cheese sauce (I'll post a different recipe for this at a later date - NOT the recipe I used this time since it was pretty sucky!) earlier in the week so I put some angel hair on to boil. However, I got side tracked by all the other stuff I was making and let the angel hair cook too long. It came out in a big glob. I ran cold water over it hoping that would help separate it but it didn't do much really. I stirred in the "cheese" sauce anyway, hoping it wouldn't be too bad but I was wrong.
So at dinner Friday night, we had really sucky pasta, roast okra that hubby wouldn't eat, roast parsnips that all of us decided not to eat (or ever cook again), steamed broccoli that nobody could ruin and really good corn on the cob. LOL. The corn on the cob was truly the only saving grace. Hubby was really sweet though and said "wow, it's really cool how you got the pasta to stick together... how'd you do that?" LOL. He's so funny.
Saturday evening we went to a movie so dinner was a quick avocado pasta that I did NOT overcook but it still didn't make up for the really sucky dinner Friday night.
I had to redeem myself and Sunday seemed like the perfect night for redemption. I think I actually managed to do it. :)
I started with my new favorite potato and green bean salad. I just microwave a bunch of small potatoes and some fresh green beans. Put a couple of cooked potatoes in the Vitamix, along with 1/4 cup of fresh basil leaves, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of water. Blend until smooth. Stir together with the potatoes and green beans and refrigerate for an hour or two to let flavors blend. It is amazing!
Then I roasted some of the best looking Brussels sprouts I've ever seen. 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. The individual leaves get really brown and crispy and they're like eating candy. If sweet hubby and heathen son are around when they come out of the oven, they fight over them. Today, they were all mine. :)
I decided we needed some sort of casserole for a main dish. I seem to fall back on stuff I know is good together and we all like but since I'd never made anything quite like this one before, I wasn't completely sure how it would turn out but it was really good. I guess I'd have to call it an enchilada casserole since I used enchilada sauce.
I put some red onion and red bell pepper (I had them both all chopped up from earlier in the day) in the pan to saute. Then I added some garlic, about half a can of enchilada sauce and some rehydrated TVP (textured vegetable protein -- makes your sauce thick and "meaty"), along with about 1/2 a package of taco seasoning and a good dash of sriracha sauce. Then I added a can of drained and rinsed black beans. In hindsight I realized I could have added a can of corn, too, but I didn't think of it tonight.
While all of that was cooking up, I cooked about 8 oz. of whole wheat penne pasta. Once the pasta was done and drained, I returned it to the pot and mixed the enchilada sauce mixture in really well and stirred in about 1/4 cup of chopped fresh cilantro. I poured all this into a 9x13 inch glass baking dish, topped it with a little nutritional yeast and popped it into the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes.
Sweet hubby and heathen son both agreed that I did, in fact, redeem myself.
Now to figure out what to make for dinner tomorrow.... hmmm. :)
- Posted by Jennifer
Location:Home, sweet home
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