Mexican spinach and hamburger casserole

This is a recipe from the same lady's website where I found the taco spice mix I liked. She lists quite a few casseroles which sounded good. This time I tried the Mexican spinach and hamburger casserole. It was quite tasty indeed! I will definitely be trying more from recipes from her site.

BBQ Burgers

I was in the mood for burgers tonight. Ranch dressing mix was included within the patties themselves. A tomato was sliced as a topping along with some freshly fried bacon strips. No burger would be complete without a bit of cheddar melted on top. The finishing touch was some BBQ sauce from Salt Lick. I also made a batch of mock mashed potatoes for a side dish.

Blackened salmon

Our special tonight is blackened salmon with a side of creamed spinach. Enjoy!

Mucho tacos

I finished off the taco meat left over from last night. I added some shredded lettuce, chopped red onion, and sour cream. Muy bueno!

Tacos

Soundtrack: Dresden Files: Proven Guilty audio book narrated by James Marsters

Today I decided to try making my own taco seasoning mix. Buying a package from the store resulted in rather bland tasting tacos last time I gave it a try. A Google search turned up a woman's web site with plenty of low carb recipes. As a bonus, she awards each recipe she tries with a rating and her comments. The taco seasoning was rated high by her, and it definitely turned out better than the pre-packaged variety I used. There are plenty of other recipes listed on her site. I have a feeling they will be showing up in my kitchen shortly.

Tarragon cream chicken

Soundtrack: Dresden Files: Proven Guilty audio book narrated by James Marsters

Tonight's menu features tarragon cream chicken with a side dish of steamed cauliflower and broccoli. I had a bit more time this evening to stop at the grocery store. However I still was not looking forward to an elaborate meal. This is one of those dishes which is not very complicated to prepare but still tastes pretty good.

Dirty eggs

Soundtrack: Dresden Files: Proven Guilty audio book narrated by James Marsters

Another late night at the office. Luckily I had the same ingredients at home that I used to cook a spinach omelet a couple weeks ago. No need to stop at the grocery store! This time I was not feeling quite up to the effort of producing a nice omelet. Rather I went with mixing the filling items in with the eggs. Omelets certainly look nicer, but it still tastes great with only a slight change in texture.

Big ol hunk a meat

Soundtrack: Dresden Files: Proven Guilty audio book narrated by James Marsters

Tonight I wanted some beef. Nothing quite like a good steak. Threw in an obligatory side of creamed spinach to complete. Just to top it off, I also whipped up some mock mashed potatoes. Nice!

Omelet

Soundtrack: Dresden Files: Proven Guilty audio book narrated by James Marsters

I remained at work longer than expected today. One of my co-workers wanted to submit some significant changes to our data entry process, and I offered to review them since I really wanted to use them. I was in the mood to head straight home once that task was complete. In addition, I was anxious to use up the last link of turkey sausage before it went bad. This all led to me cooking an omelet for dinner again. It was the usual mix of the sausage, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, red onion, and mushrooms.

More chicken mole

Soundtrack: Dresden Files: Proven Guilty audio book narrated by James Marsters

Tonight I heated up the chicken mole left over from yesterday. I also added a bit of ground cayenne pepper for some heat. This did help a little, but not enough for me to try this recipe again in the future. Hopefully I will get a chance to experiment with different versions soon.

Chicken mole

Soundtrack: Dresden Files: Proven Guilty audio book narrated by James Marsters

My friend Ben suggested we eat lunch at Taco Deli, a local restaurant serving soft tacos. He mentioned really liking their mole tacos, so we all purchased one of those. They were indeed quite delicious! Jump to this afternoon when I was paging through my cookbooks looking for dinner ideas. A recipe for chicken mole from the South Beach Diet Cookbook stood out in my mind. It seemed fairly straightforward, so I decided to give it a try. My house was smelling great by the time the sauce had completed simmering! Sadly the sauce turned out to taste rather bland. I guess that is what I should have expected from the simple recipe, but I had gotten my hopes up. Oh well.

Stuffed salmon

Soundtrack: Dresden Files: Proven Guilty audio book narrated by James Marsters

Tonight I wanted to steer away from chicken after eating it the past few evenings. I was able to leave work at a reasonable time which allowed more cooking time than some nights. I decided to bake feta-spinach stuffed salmon along with the recommended companion little mama's side dish. You may have noticed this is a meal I frequently return to. The only negative is the baking time required. It is not something I can quickly whip up when I am hungry, so it was nice to have the free time to enjoy it today.

Dijon tarragon cream chicken

Soundtrack: Dresden Files: Proven Guilty audio book narrated by James Marsters

Tonight is using up the last chicken breasts I purchased a couple days ago. Since I did not enjoy last night's bourbon cream recipe, I decided to cook dijon tarragon cream chicken as it is a known winner. Nothing else too interesting to add here. I did steam some broccoli and cauliflower for a side. There was some extra sauce which I poured over the top of that.

Bourbon cream chicken

Soundtrack: Dresden Files: Proven Guilty audio book narrated by James Marsters

Yesterday's shopping trip yielded enough chicken for several meals. A bit of browsing Google results produced a new bourbon based chicken recipe to try this evening. This one uses cream as a sauce component which I was looking forward to. It also called for igniting the bourbon to burn off the alcohol. That was quite fun. Unfortunately I was not as happy with how the sauce tasted. I ended up increasing the cream, onion, and spices to help offset the bitterness. Everything tasted okay in the end, but this is not a recipe I will be trying again. There are plenty of other bourbon and cream based chicken recipes available for future experiments. Hopefully those are more enjoyable.