This week I have a good variety of meals. You'll notice that one week I might have 5 dinner recipes and the next maybe just 3 recipes. The reasoning behind that is simply because there are fewer people at our house every other week. Jeff and I can eat leftovers, so I just don't have to cook as much. I was going to just have 3 recipes, but I decided to add in a non-Pinterest meal for you at the end. I just threw it together after going to the grocery store for lunch on Saturday and it was really good. We have a good selection of dairy free and gluten free meals!
1. Creamy Pepperoncini Skillet - A bit of a kick but good!
Jeff loves pepperoncini. I tried growing them this year and failed. I will try again next year. When I saw this recipe, I thought that I just had to try it. I did mix it with red potatoes as the side. I just add butter to the potatoes and salt. Again, that was for Jeff because I would have probably done rice or cauliflower rice. I also added Roasted Red Peppers to this because it looked like there were some in the pictures, but they didn't list them as an ingredient. Instead of heavy cream, I used full fat canned coconut. You'll see that I do that often to make a recipe dairy free. The heavy cream just adds a bunch of calories in my opinion that aren't really needed to make the recipe taste good. This was super easy to make and didn't take very long at all. You could do a little prep work by having the onion already sliced up but that's about it.
2. Crockpot Shipwreck Stew - You know we gotta get a crockpot meal in here every week!
Before we talk about this meal, I have to tell you about the crockpot I use. I love it. It's by Green Pan and I feel it's a little less toxic than some of the others. Ideally, you'd have a stainless steel "pot" but those are super expensive. Check out this one and see what you think. My only downside is that it's a little small for us sometimes. Ok, now to the meal. It was SOOO easy. You definitely could do some meal prepping for this one by having the ground beef already cooked and even the potatoes already sliced. You'd just store them in water until you're ready to use them. I did add a little extra chicken bone broth to this recipe. It was even good as leftovers. This is great if you're feeding a lot of people.
3. Chicken Lo Mein - Need a different kind of food sometimes?
I'll be honest. Jeff didn't care much for this recipe. But he did say that if I had used skirt steak instead of chicken, he thinks he would have liked it better. I'll add that I do wish I cut up the chicken smaller. So, I do recommend that. BUT, I thought the flavor was great. You could eat this even without the noodles. It is a whole 30 recipe, so the noodles were heart of palm which I had never tried before. I liked it. This will be my lunch a couple days this week. I felt like it added good veggies too. I did buy the napa cabbage because I didn't know what Chinese cabbage was. I also used ginger essential oil instead of fresh ginger. Let me know if you try it! If you like Asian food I think you'll like it.
4. Trader Joe's Autumnal Harvest Soup with Pumpkin Gnocchi
I went to Trader Joe's with my mom and sister on Saturday. It was an unplanned trip. Let me tell you - they have all the fall/pumpkin/apple stuff out and ready for you to buy. I came across this Harvest Soup which I had never tried before. I thought it might be a good lunch/dinner for Jeff and I. THEN I saw the pumpkin gnocchi. Remember we had the potato gnocchi last week with the chicken n dumpling recipe. I decided I needed to buy this and try it. I bought two jars of the Harvest Soup and one bag of the Pumpkin Gnocchi. It was so good. I also made a grilled turkey and cheese sandwich with my sourdough sandwich bread to go with it. I still have some soup left over but it was definitely filling and very good. It tasted homemade. If you're near a Trader Joe's I'd recommend giving it a try!
That's a wrap for this week! If you make any of these recipes, I'd love for you to comment or tag me on social media! See you next Monday for more simple, delicious dinners from Misty Creek Acres Kitchen!