Meals of the Week, April 21st - 27th, 2024

 True to form the week has flown past and here we are at another Sunday, another Meals of the Week Post. I have been doing this for about a year now and these weekly round ups have  become something that I really enjoy doing each week.

I am determined to cook myself decent meals even though I find myself living on my own.  I don’t ever want to be that person who indulges in overly processed premade meals and takeaways.  Although these past few weeks  I have eaten out twice a week. (NOT normal.)  Usually I do eat out once  a week with my dad and I try to choose a healthy option most of the time when I do. 

In any case I have provided a suitable alternative that compares well with what I have eaten when I was out. I do think that home cooked food, whilst more labor intensive for sure, is always better for you and better tasting in most cases!

Sharing these recipes with you has inspired me to cook regularly as well.  I love sharing my recipes with you and I really do hope that you are inspired to want to cook them and to cook regularly for yourself as well!  Together we can all eat healthier, well managed  and complete meals that don’t necessarily require a whole lot of work to put together!

 I try to keep things as healthy and low cost as I can. In these days of rising food costs, every little bit helps!

In any case, here are the delicious main meals that I enjoyed over the past seven days. I hope that you will get some ideas about how you can cook some of them for yourself, save some money and eat as well as I do!

SUNDAY, April 21st - Dinner at Cindy’s

On Sunday’s I usually have dinner at my sisters with my father and my sister’s husband Dan. She usually cooks a roast of some sort. This week it was chicken. I love LOVE roast chicken. I could eat roast chicken every week. You always get a delicious roast dinner on the day and then with the leftovers you can get a few more meals, depending on the size of the chicken and the size of your family.

I am sharing my recipe for Another Roast Chicken. In this recipe the chicken is spatchcocked (split and flattened) and roasted over a bed of vegetables.  I tell you exactly how to spatchcock a chicken with pictures.  

Also if you are wanting tasty ideas on how to use any chicken leftovers, here is a post I did on How to Make Your Roast Chicken Pay for Itself.  You may find this very helpful. Sometimes we may avoid paying the cost of a roast chicken because it seems a bit much, but this article shows you how to really get the most out of that cost that you can!

MONDAY, April 22nd – Tender Beef & Noodles

I had some of the beef from this recipe frozen in the freezer. It makes two servings and I usually freeze one for a later date.  What you have here is a delicious dish of tender, fall apart, melt in the mouth beef in a delicious gravy, served along with some hot buttered noodles.

You can either cook this in a slow cooker/crock pot or in a small Dutch oven on top of the stove. Its a very simple recipe with loads of flavor. I usually will cook a simple vegetable on the side like string beans or carrots.

TUESDAY, April 23rd. – Chicken and Garlic Potatoes Casserole

My sister had given me a quantity of cooked chicken to take home with me and so on Tuesday I made myself this delicious chicken casserole. The original recipe makes six servings, but I cut it way back to serve only one as I only had enough chicken for one.

This is a simple and delicious chicken casserole which makes good use of leftover chicken and store cupboard ingredients.  It is like a pot pie, with a lush gravy,  but instead is topped with a potato crust of thinly sliced buttery garlic potatoes. 

Wednesday, April 24th - Dinner out with Dad

I usually go out for dinner with my father and his friend Hazel on Wednesday nights. We got to a local eatery which is called The Big Scoop Family Restaurant and Takeaway.  They are a pretty popular place and have a very large menu. They specialize in burgers.   I am not one to eat a burger very often, but I did avail myself of their Oklahoma Double Onion Smashie this week, although I opted to have it with just one beef patty. (I can’t eat two!)

In it’s place I am sharing my Onion Pan Burgers recipe which is just about the same thing except you can cook them at home!  An all beef patty is cooked and smashed into sliced onions and cooked to perfection.  The onions get embedded in the patty flavoring it. Of course there are plenty of onions in the pan so the bun also gets to steam on top of the remaining onions.  A slice of cheese is melted on top. This is burger perfection in my opinion!

THURSDAY, April 25th – Tomato Soup with Cheddar Cheese and Chive Scones

It was a beautiful sunny day on Thursday but the temperatures were absolutely perishing!  Plus there was a harsh wind blowing and so I opted for a simple supper of Tomato Soup.  I did make my soup from scratch. The link is there. I have shared it before.  On this day I chose to accompany it with some delicious scones rather than a grilled cheese sandwich.

The Chives are going crazy in my back garden and I am trying to use them in as many ways as possible. These scones are lovely. Light and jam packed with plenty of strong sharp cheddar cheese and loads of chopped chives for a mild onion hit.  These went really well with the tomato soup!

FRIDAY, April 26th - Crispy Mustard Chicken with Spring Potato Salad

I like to buy packs of chicken thighs and then I divide and freeze them in two-thigh sized packs.  This week I made this delicious dinner for two of Crispy Mustard Chicken with a wonderfully flavored Potato Salad Vinaigrette.  

The chicken is spread with Dijon mustard on the underside and then flat roasted in a heavy skillet, skin side down and weighted.  This results in a lovely crisp skin.  The mustard flavors the chicken from the inside out, mellow and not slap in the face. The flavor is beautiful and goes wonderfully with that lovely baby potato salad with its fresh herb flavors.  Altogether this was quite scrumptious!

SATURDAY, April 27th – Chili Cheese Dog Hot Dish 

I finished off the week with one of my all time favorite casseroles. Chili Cheese Dog Hot Dish. I adore hotdogs, which I know not everyone does.  They really shine in this delicious, simple casserole which is a riff on Chili dogs.  A delicious store-cupboard meal it goes together very simply.

The base is a mix of sliced hot dogs, a can of chili and a few other bits.  This gets topped with grated cheese and some frozen tater tots.  This gets baked until everything is bubbling away and then just before serving, and when the tater tops are crispy, you can sprinkle a bit more cheese on top and let it melt.  Oh boy but this is some good.

If you are looking for simple and delicious, you really can’t go wrong with this!  I enjoyed it with a nice salad on the side.

And there you have it. My meals of the week for this last full week in April. I can’t believe we are at the end of April. I have now been doing these meals of the week posts for a whole year!  They are something that I have really enjoyed putting together and I think you have enjoyed them also!  They will continue!

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