Sunday: Chili
This is the same Instant Pot chili i made last week – the Wendy’s make-alike. The only change i made was to use two packets of chili seasoning. i used Club House chili seasoning instead of Old El Paso, and it made the chili taste a little too … Club Housey? i dunno. i might use my own spice mix next time.
i’m re-learning that chili makes a great Sunday night meal, because it makes boatloads, and fills in the gaps through the rest of the week. i only bought my lunch once last week, thanks largely to chili starting us all off on a good foot.
i also bought these things as a chili garnish. They’re pretty good… add a little crunch to the dish, and don’t go instantly soggy like some tortilla chips do.
Monday: Instant Pot Mac and Cheese
It was supposed to be ribs on Monday night, but i was exhausted, and we were running late. Cheryl lent the assist, and was SHOCKED and APPALLED at how much cheese went into this thing (i had to remind her, repeatedly, that we were making mac and *cheese*).
She quieted down pretty quickly after taking a few bites. This recipe was scrumptious. But being so heavy, it damn well should have been.
Tuesday: Instant Pot Spare Ribs and Crisp Honey Parsnips
We had to make this on Tuesday to keep the ribs from going bad like they did a few weeks ago. That meant it fell to Cheryl to make this meal that i really wanted to make, using the honey garlic sauce i bought (she grabbed half a bottle of some months-old Guy Fieri rib sauce we had lying around). We bought the ribs from Costco, because so many people i know rave about their cuts, but the portion of the rack i ate was half-cartilage. Also: BOO HOO HOO.
My point is that i really wanted to make this one to my own taste. Costco sells ribs by the palette, so now we have a freezer full of the things that i can use to redeem this travesty.
And the parsnips? Every bit as good as the first time we made them, and we skipped the honey again.
Wednesday: Instant Pot Broccoli Beef
This was a really capable recipe. i bought a reasonably-priced AAA+ steak – the kind that’s cut from a cow who had daily massages and got to watch Baby Einstein videos all day. The result was tasty, sugary strips of beef with broccoli on rice. Predictable but good, and really easy to slam together.
Thursday: Instant Pot Chicken and Stuffing
i loved loved loved this one. StoveTop Stuffing is one of my guilty pleasures. It’s basically salty sawdust in a box, but sometimes i’ll just make a pot as a snack. As long as i can buy it for 99 cents, i’m happy. What a dirty, dirty food habit. Mmmmm.
So this is that stuff, some chicken, frozen green beans, and good ol’ every-meal-i-ate-as-a-kid-in-the-1980’s standby Campbell’s Cream of Chicken Soup, which my mom (and likely yours) would dump liberally on pork chops, spare ribs, salad, Kool-Aid, and whatever other fucking thing she could get her out-of-control oven mitts on. This dish tasted like big-hair, tight jeans, Q-bert high score nostalgia. Make a pot today.
Friday: Instant Pot Crack Chicken
You know a recipe is a good idea when it’s compared to a dangerous street drug. Then, when the ingredients list reads like a list of food items they threw away at the gas station, you know for sure you’ve got a winner on your hands.
Chicken, bacon, cream cheese, corn starch, and powdered ranch dressing all go in to making this salad of unearthly delight. We put it on some sliced-up Belgian bread, because i was too lazy to bake some potatoes.
It tasted good enough … not as delicious as i imagine actual crack to be. (i also don’t think this chicken was ever distributed by the CIA to destroy and discredit black people.) It was the tiniest bit grainy, as if the powdered ranch didn’t fully dissolve into the cream cheese.
i probably wouldn’t make this again, because when i weighed myself the next morning, i had “gained” a full three pounds. This was probably (hopefully) due to massive amounts of sodium in this dish, and the held-over sodium from Thursday’s stuffing fiasco, causing my body to retain water. That’s my working theory, anyway (with a little help from Cheryl.) i’ve never seen a fat crack user, so maybe smoking a rock will help me drop those unwanted pounds?
Saturday: None of your beeswax
We violated our no-takeout protocol yesterday because we took a little mini-vacation up to cottage country, which meant three square restaurant meals in a day. i knew i was going to be incredibly active all day long, so i wasn’t too picky about calorie counts. My weight went up slightly, but nothing compared to the windfall that the accursed crack chicken brought me the night before.
It’s Sunday now. Time to do some meal planning and get back on track! i’ll definitely be looking at the recipes Mariana Gruber shared a few days ago. If you have anything else you think we should make, let me know!
