More deliciousness...

The week before Thanksgiving, Greg left earlier than I did for our holiday break to go on a trip with his parents and I was left to fend for myself in terms of dinner plans. I had to come up with simple, quick meals that would still be delicious but not be as time consuming. Cooking for one is actually harder for me since I'm so used to cooking elaborate concoctions for 2. These are the delicious but quick dishes for one that I came up with.

November 21, 2009

Bean Tacos with Chicken and Vegetables

Ingredients:

Extra virgin olive oil

Garlic

Onion

Skinless boneless chicken breast, cubed

Chopped eggplant

Fresh chopped tomato

Fresh cilantro leaves

1 fresh lime

1/4 can Goya black beans

1/4 can refried pinto beans

Salt

Black pepper

Chili powder

Paprika

Cholula and El Yucateco hot sauces (optional)

Shredded cheddar cheese

Low fat sour cream

1 Old El Paso Stand n' Stuff taco shell

My first night flying solo I decided to quickly heat up some beans to put in a hard taco shell and then to simply spice and cook onion, eggplant and chicken with cilantro and other mexican flavors. This was a fairly fast and simple dinner to make.

The beans were a mixture of 1/4 can Goya black beans and 1/4 can refried pinto beans. I find that this mixture makes refried beans more creamy and not thick and goopy the way they come straight out of the can. I probably also added a little chili powder and a drop or two of the deathly but delicious El Yucateco green habanero hot sauce which is so good but beware!! Once the beans were hot, they were ready to go. I dished it out into my taco shell, topped it with fresh chopped tomato, some shredded cheddar cheese, and of course plenty of sour cream.

Since the beans were so easy, I had to cook this part of the dish first. The most tedious part of the meal in this case was de-frosting the chicken since I didn't have any fresh. While it de-frosted I started out my pan with olive oil, garlic and onion. Shortly after I put that in, I added in my small pieces of eggplant and mixed. If the eggplant still looks dry and keeps it's white color even after you have mixed it in with the rest of the ingredients then you might want to add more olive oil. Having enough olive oil for the eggplant to suck up is going to make it softer and juicier!! After those ingredients cooked for a minute or two I added in my chunks of chicken and my diced fresh cilantro. At this point I added my spices: plenty of chili powder and salt, a little paprika, some black pepper and Cholula hot sauce (the best hot sauce in the world) and finally half of a fresh lime squeezed into the mix.

I let all these ingredients simmer until the chicken was cooked through (which shouldn't take too long on medium heat) and then served on the side of my taco piping hot and topped with some more sour cream.

November 22, 2009

After my eggplant and chicken tacos I was left craving more vegetables and decided to make a really light and fresh pasta sauce from olive oil, vegetables, spices and not much else.

Since I don't remember exactly what my recipe or ingredients were I won't go into great detail but to make a similar sauce is extremely simple. Start a pan with garlic and olive oil and onion if you like. As usual, once those ingredients have been simmering and are becoming golden add in pretty much any vegetables you like eating. I used fresh chopped zucchini, pieces of eggplant, chopped onion, Trader Joe's Melange a Trois frozen pepper mix and chopped fresh tomato. Spice any way you see fit (salt, garlic powder, basil leaves, red chili pepper flakes etc.). Serve piping hot with any variety of pasta and definitely top with grated parmesan cheese!

Moving to December...and I'll start a new post!

M