The Last Two Weeks-ish in the Personal Chef Corner: What is in the Grocery Basket?

I am finally getting this post up that has been languishing all week while I recovered from a bad sunburn - an adventure I never want again.  Every once in a while, I will post pictures and descriptions of things I made during a week.  I will probably work some of the things I do into more formal recipes, but these will be the cliff note versions of ingredients and flavor profiles behind each plate. Like all of the things I am making right now, I am not planning a grocery list ahead based on what recipe I want to make.  These are all designed based on what my sister buys and has on hand.

 Last Week in the Grocery Basket

My sister picked up groceries Monday night (3/19).  For dinner she gave me the following directive: make the tilapia with butter and lime, a cilantro pesto with some macadamia nuts she brought home from vacation, and a bag of 50% off Brussels sprouts.

• Tilapia was cooked in butter with salt, onion, garlic, and red pepper. 
• Pesto was made with cilantro, macadamia nut, olive oil, jalapeño, salt, pepper, a dash of tequila, and lime. The tequila added to the freshness and tang. 
• Side of siracha pan-roasted Brussels sprouts - salt, sriracha, ginger, garlic, onion, in olive oil, and toasted sesame seeds as garnish. 
• All served with lime wedge.

Tuesday was a day off for my sister, so we split the remaining fillet and made fish tacos with the pesto as a sauce and finished off the brussel sprouts.  Dinner was Salsa Poached Chicken and Vanilla Graham Marsala roasted red potatoes.

• Chicken marinated and poached in the 1 cup HEB spicy arrabbiata sauce,  chili powder, 1 large key lime, 3 cloves garlic, 1 tbsp. jalapeño minced, cilantro, and salt.  Oil on bottom and a pat of butter per chicken breast on top. Covered with foil and poached in the oven on one rack with the roasting potatoes on the other.
• Red skinned potatoes parboiled then roasted with vanilla garam masala, garlic, butter, olive oil, and salt.

Wednesday we had left over salsa chicken made into quesadillas with cheese and corn tortillas and I made riced cauliflower as a side.

• Riced Cauliflower with Indian spices: whole cumin seeds, turmeric, fresh garlic and ginger, onion (grated), salt, red chili powder & flakes, cilantro, and red bell pepper.

Thursday was dough day.  I made a batch of our grandmothers's rolls for the weekly fresh bread. For dinner I made homemade agnolotti stuffed with roasted butternut squash in a cilantro lime brown butter sauce. The stuffing was my own creation, but I used pasta recipe and brown butter technique.
My sister made chocolate chip cookies using this recipe after dinner.

• The agnolotti filling was made with butternut squashed that was roasted at high heat with salt, pepper, thyme, and canola oil until it started to caramelize. Then processed in blender to make it smooth and stirred in minced garlic, onion, and mushrooms that have been sautéed in olive oil with garam masala, coriander, ginger-garlic powder, and salt until their juices are all released. 
• Brown butter sauce seasoned with fresh cilantro, lime zest, and salt. (Traditional sage would have been good too, but fresh cilantro is what is usually on hand.)

Friday I made tequila lime chicken with oven roasted potatoes that I finished off with the left over rice cauliflower added on top the last ten minutes.  It was really spicy the day I made it, so the potatoes helped balance that out.  Friday's dinner was a little less fancy looking because it was using up leftovers and I was really prepping the chicken to use for a chicken salad for our picnic lunch on the beach Saturday.

This Week - Taking it Easy

After a very productive food week, we went to the beach and I got sunburned. So I did not feel like getting this post up as soon as I should have, but the beach was so nice.  I did not get a picture of our picnic lunch because it was so windy that day.  The wind was probably why the chair rental guy was not putting up umbrellas.  No one who tried to erect one succeeded in not having it turn inside out.  On the plus side, the wind made it much more pleasant to sit in the sun.

This week was mostly me making something that did not require me standing for very long, especially early in the week when my sunburn was at its worst. I did remember to take a picture on Wednesday of dressed up frozen mac and cheese with marinated zucchini. My sister got a lot of freebies with the purchase of a ham and the Mac and cheese was one of them.  I dressed it up with sautéed onion, garlic, mushroom, and spinach stirred in with paprika, garlic powder, and sriracha. I made a seasoned bread crumb for the top and baked it all together.  I did a marinated zucchini using limes instead of lemons to be a foil to the rich main dish on the plate.

Things to Come

I have looked at the available offals and some unique cuts that are common in the local grocery store. I was excited to see beef cheeks, and they are pretty inexpensive compared to the prices I usually see for beef. I definitely plan to do those at some point and would like to try out cooking tripe.  However, my sister is not keen on tripe.  Most likely, I will be posting about beef cheeks first.

And maybe eventually we can get some different plates to mix it up a little. 😏

That is all for this post.  I am going to be working on some non-food posts this week and get that part of the blog rolling soon.