Menu Review: Week of 5/16

Coming off a week of mostly great weather and mostly great dinner recipes!

Rachael Ray is notorious for (among many other annoying things) creating recipes that - while delicious! - somehow seem to dirty every pot and pan I own. Sometimes I feel like I need four additional hands just to keep on track with getting everything done at once. Two of the recipes I made this past week were no exception... the outcome for the pork chops with balsamic strawberry salad and orzo was worth the extra dish-washing. When I was getting everything together to make this dinner, I realized that I had forgotten to buy orzo, so I had to work with what I had... and that was couscous. So instead of making the orzo as written, I threw the butter (I only used 2 tbsp - it was plenty), cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper in with the water required to make the couscous, boiled, cooked and fluffed, and then folded in the pine nuts. Instead of prosciutto, I used bacon (already had some on hand), and I put it on the salad instead of the orzo couscous. The salad was the best part of the dinner and I definitely plan to make that again (complete with bacon). Everything together was very good, but the salad was the real stand-out of the meal. On the flip side, the fish and pasta recipe, while good overall, wasn't good enough to make up for the extra clean-up. I liked the pasta and may make that again, but everything together was just too much work for a mediocre payoff. Oh, and we didn't put the pasta in "lettuce bowls" as the recipe requests. For real?

I admit that I was skeptical (and maybe a bit confused?) about the use of "no boil" lasagna noodles in the BH&G recipe for Lemon Chicken with Olives & Ricotta, but I decided to give it a try because I always have those around. It was good! I added about a stalk worth of rosemary into the pan with the olives and deglazed the pan with a little chicken broth afterwards, but otherwise I made this as written.

What I especially loved about the Avocado and White Bean Salad was that it didn't require any actual cooking. Sometimes you just want something that comes together easily without using the stove and I think this will be a go-to recipe for those times in the future, especially as the temps continue to rise here. This salad was really good and has to be super healthy with all of those good fats and vitamin-packed veggies. I used baby spinach instead of arugula, but otherwise made it as written.

The pizza was good and interesting but I don't think I'd make it again (I used a roasted chicken breast instead of the rotisserie chicken). The enchiladas are something we've made a few times before, we're fans - just don't use low-fat cheese as listed in the recipe. Ew. And make sure you season your veggies to taste (they don't add any seasoning in the recipe and I think it's lacking without).

-----
What we're eating this week:
Lemon Rhubarb Chicken
Goat Cheese & Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta
Tuna Orzo Salad (a favorite recipe of ours)
Apricot Turkey Burgers (another make-again)
Parmesan Chicken and Greens with Lemon Vinaigrette
Shrimp Cakes with Carrot Slaw