Got any Old Bay seasoning? If so, they have a great poultry marinade recipe on the box or you can go online and get it. It's great!

Since this pandemic started, I started ordering weekly meal kits from Hello Fresh and Marley Spoon and generally favor Marley Spoon over Hello Fresh for it's variety. Both meal kits come with virtually everything to cook it (fresh veggies and herbs, meats, carbs, etc.) and all you need are the simple things like oil, butter, salt, pepper, vinegar etc. Each week the menu's change and you pick the meals you want, the ingredients delivered right to your front door and it comes to about $20 each meal for 2 people. Check both of those out, but after doing them for months, the meals are great and we don't miss the restaurants.

Stuffed Bell Peppers, stuffed with some kind of meat and rice.

I cheat, I go to my local Costco where they make these fresh every day onsite.

Dang they're good, I've been buying 1 tray a week, each tray has 6 huge pieces.

Do you own a smoker?
(BBQ Pit Boys dot com)

How about a pressure cooker?
(Imagine a dish you'd like to eat then search "that dish" AND pressure cooker)

Did you see Para's recent post regarding carbonara?
(Check that bad boy out!)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by rsbolo:
Do you own a smoker?
(BBQ Pit Boys dot com)
No, but I do a pretty decent job of smoking with my kettle grill

How about a pressure cooker?
(Imagine a dish you'd like to eat then search "that dish" AND pressure cooker)
No, don’t have one of those

Did you see Para's recent post regarding carbonara?
(Check that bad boy out!)[
You’re the second person who brought it up. No, I didn’t /QUOTE]

Tonight we’re just grilling burgers with fresh corn, but we both liked the sound of Rogue’s chili-lime marinade for those chicken breasts; they’re in the frig marinating for tomorrow night. Several great ideas. I hope everyone is gaining some new ideas for supper.

I’ve taken to YouTube to help me with my meal planning activities.

There are two channels that I really like:

-Sam The Cooking Guy
-Not Another Cooking Show

Between those two, I’ve discovered the joy of cooking.

KISS Chicken and noodles (preferably homemade on the thick side) ladled over mashed taters. Or throw a porkloin in the crockpot and season it as you wish. BBQ sauce if you wish when you remove. I'm a simple man.

Once a month ,one of us will holler kindergarden lunch or kindergarden supper.

Meaning it's going to be super simple.

Either Mac and cheese with a banana and left over veggi.
Or
Toasted cheese sandwich with sliced tomato and grapes
Or
Fried egg on toast with
Half an apple and celery.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
Since this pandemic started, I started ordering weekly meal kits from Hello Fresh and Marley Spoon and generally favor Marley Spoon over Hello Fresh for it's variety. Both meal kits come with virtually everything to cook it (fresh veggies and herbs, meats, carbs, etc.) and all you need are the simple things like oil, butter, salt, pepper, vinegar etc. Each week the menu's change and you pick the meals you want, the ingredients delivered right to your front door and it comes to about $20 each meal for 2 people. Check both of those out, but after doing them for months, the meals are great and we don't miss the restaurants.

Those "mail-order meal kits" are a decent way to learn to cook, and to expand your horizons with ingredients/dishes you wouldn't normally think to try, but the costs are many times higher than simply looking up recipes and buying the ingredients at the store yourself.

You're paying a steep premium for the convenience of them portioning out and shipping you the ingredients.

I had a week's worth of these style Purple Carrot meals donated by a friend back in March. The meals were pretty tasty (especially considering Purple Carrot is vegetarian/vegan), but not worth the high cost of paying for a subscription, compared to simply buying and cooking stuff myself.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
Since this pandemic started, I started ordering weekly meal kits from Hello Fresh and Marley Spoon and generally favor Marley Spoon over Hello Fresh for it's variety. Both meal kits come with virtually everything to cook it (fresh veggies and herbs, meats, carbs, etc.) and all you need are the simple things like oil, butter, salt, pepper, vinegar etc. Each week the menu's change and you pick the meals you want, the ingredients delivered right to your front door and it comes to about $20 each meal for 2 people. Check both of those out, but after doing them for months, the meals are great and we don't miss the restaurants.

Those "mail-order meal kits" are a decent way to learn to cook, and to expand your horizons with ingredients/dishes you wouldn't normally think to try, but the costs are many times higher than simply looking up recipes and buying the ingredients at the store yourself.

The honest answer is it depends. Each week are totally different entrees that we choose. Many times to do the same entrees we'd be buying larger bottles of this or that, that would just end up going bad. Also buying fresh spices in larger quantities for the same result. When looking at the prices, they come out to $20 for a meal for 2 people if you're ordering 3 meals a week. If you do 6 a week it's much less, $17.33 for a 2 serving meal. At $8.50 a person it's impossible to make a shrimp dish for the same money buying the ingredients at the supermarket for example. We sometimes do 3 Marley Spoon/ 3 Hello Fresh, other weeks we'll do 6 just from Marley Spoon. Really on half of the dishes it would cost more to do it ourselves due to the wastage of buying 10 different things you're only going to use a little bit of for that recipe and other dishes slightly less to buy the ingredients at the super market, but not by much. Also there are a lot of sides that you just don't see at the supermarket. Also with the recipe cards can always re-duplicate favorite dishes, which we have. A lot of the dishes we pick, we would never have even thought of cooking to look up the recipe. Everything comes out as good as a meal you'd order at Cheesecake Factory or better.

However, when you consider the fact we used to go to restaurants 3-4 nights a week at $50-100 and now we have no interest in doing so, both due to the covid stuff and the meals we make are just as good, it comes out to much much less. But the beauty of it, is you can do 3 meals one week and none the rest of the month, or every week, or 6 one week. It's a very nice change and gets you out of the rut of making the same 30 meals you always make. I'm a very good cook, but you know you end up making the same stuff. I see it would really shine in a rural area without a lot of restaurants. I'd suggest using one of the promotions for a free week and trying it.......I felt the same way until due to the pandemic starting and wanting to limit how many times we went to the grocery store and tried it. Now I don't want to go back......we usually do 6 meals a week and then 7th night either go out to eat, order a pizza, or cook ourselves.........

For me, simple is better. I lightly steam chopped fresh broccoli, broil or boil a boneless, skinless chicken breast, chop it up and serve it over the broccoli with a bit of Alfredo sauce. You can also throw in a bit of pasta if you are so inclined.

Skillet cook the chicken breasts whole. Take off the heat and set aside. Chop a half dozen tomatillos and throw in skillet along with a couple cans of green chilies. Simmer long enough for the mixture to thicken. Slice chicken breast 3/8” thick and add to chilies ant tomatillos. Simmer another 15 minutes or so as you make some rice. I like it with corn tortillas as well.

It has a nice tartness I guess is what I’d call it. Very little heat but that can be adjusted with additional and hotter chilies.

Similar recipe. Leave out the tomatillos and add a package of cream cheese.

TMats - The BBQ Pit Boys do almost all their cooking on weber kettle grills/smokers! Check them out.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
A chili-lime marinade should help out those boring chicken breasts.

Makes for outstanding eating on its own, or even better fajitas.


Spice mix, to prepare first:
4 tsp chili powder
2 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne pepper

(Makes enough for a couple batches; store excess in an airtight plastic container.)


Then marinade:
1. Put chicken breasts (thawed not frozen) in gallon ziploc bag(s). I try to not put more than 3 or so breasts in each bag.
2. Into each bag, squeeze 1 lime per chicken breast, plus 1 additional lime.
3. Add one heaping spoonful of spice mix (above) per chicken breast to each bag.
4. Close bag with the bag half-filled with air, then squish the breasts around inside to distribute the marinade mix.
5. Reopen bag, squeeze all the air out of the bag, reclose bag.
6. Refrigerate at least several hours, and preferably overnight. Flip bag over at least once about halfway through.


After marinating, grill chicken breasts over charcoal until internal temp reaches 165.



The next day, with the leftover chicken, you can then easily throw together some Chicken Posole soup. Dice up a breast or two of the leftover chile-lime chicken and add to a 4 quart pot with a few cups of chicken broth and a can each of salsa verde, green chiles, white hominy, black eyed peas, and diced tomatoes, plus some cumin and chili powder. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10-20ish minutes. Top with sour cream and cilantro.

This is good! Try it folks

Baked potatoes?

We do that with a bag of frozen vegetables in cheese sauce. Zap the bag per the instructions, cut the baked potato in half and pour the hot cheese/vegetables over it.

A lighter but filling meal.