It’s been a few weeks since a weekly meals post! The week of our half marathon, a couple of weeks ago now, we literally ate out or had some sort of dinnertime event every night that week, so this post is from the past two weeks since then. We were hoping that life would calm down a little bit after our race, but it’s still feeling pretty crazy around here. I think an important lesson that we’re learning is that not everything has to be a perfect meal to be dinner-worthy. Sometimes I feel defeated if we don’t have all the ingredients for a particular recipe, or when there’s a bunch of random things in the fridge that don’t seem to go together – it can be easier to resort to take-out on those nights, but when I stick it out and make something from what’s already there, it’s infinitely more rewarding.

Here are a few things we’ve put together over the last two weeks: 

EGG AND CHEESE BURRITOSOtherwise pretty basic and boring, but with these tortillas, kind of amazing. These are the next best thing to homemade, are restaurant-quality good, and get that good crispiness that is hard to achieve with other store-bought soft tortillas. If you live near a Costco or Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, give these guys a try next time. Oh, and yes, that’s beef jerky on our burritos. Sometimes you gotta get creative.

GREEN GODDESS SPINACH SALAD WITH SWEET POTATOES, CHICKPEAS, AND JERKYWe’ve made a few different versions of this salad recently. I’m not good at eating salads as an entree unless they are filled with delicious things. Leftover baked sweet potato, a can of chickpeas, some sliced up beef jerky (again!), and yummy green goddess dressing definitely made this worth eating.

PASTA WITH TOMATOES AND ASPARAGUSNothin’ special. Except that it’s asparagus season, which is obviously very special.

BAKED SWEET POTATO WITH BBQ CHICKENI actually really like baked sweet potatoes, and they are easy to make in a big batch, so I’m not sure why we don’t make them more often. I rubbed these with some olive oil and coarse sea salt, baked for about an hour on 400, then added some shredded rotisserie chicken with BBQ sauce, plus scallions and shredded cheese. A pretty hands-off, hearty, healthy meal that we’ve been having for lunches a lot lately as well and has become a new fave.

ASPARAGUS AND RICOTTA TARTINES WITH LEMON ZESTWe needed something quick and easy for Friday dinner last week, so we stopped on our way home for bread and ricotta and whipped up these tartines, which I gather is just a fancy word for things on toast. They were really good, especially with the addition of lemon zest. They would be a great appetizer for bigger meal or for a dinner party, but worked out pretty well for us since I made several of them and since I knew we’d likely be eating something else later that evening.

this week: This week we’re determined to get a bunch of yard work done and our garden planted, which means we should be home most nights and making dinner. There are a bunch of random things in the freezer and cabinet that I’m hoping to make use of before we go on vacation in a few weeks, so there might be some, uh, creative, meals this week.

SAUSAGE PIZZA + GREEN SALADAbout as boring and easy as it gets. Hy-Vee pizza (which I think I’ve mentioned before, but is impressively decent) plus some green stuff. Bonus: lunch leftovers the next day.

ONE-POT SALMON COCONUT CURRY PASTAI’ve had this recipe pinned on Pinterest for a long time, so when we decided on salmon for this night but didn’t have a plan beyond that, I remembered that I’d seen this and that it looked yummy. After making this, I definitely want to incorporate more one-pot pastas, etc. into the mix because this was really delicious but also so easy. Yes, a bit of prep work to get all the veggies chopped and ingredients ready to go, since you more or less add everything into the pot at once, but otherwise, not a lot of work at all and pretty much foolproof. Really flavorful and could easily be adapted to other flavor profiles, other proteins, etc. (Although I think it’s well-suited to fish due to the short cooking time).

MAC & CHEESEYep, this happened, from a box. All I can say is, I saw this article on my way home that afternoon, and it disturbingly still made me want boxed mac & cheese immediately. (We buy the Annie’s white cheddar kind, so we can feel slightly better about ourselves). Five minutes after eating this, still starving and plotting dinner: round deux, I remembered that while delicious, this is not an appropriate, well-rounded adult meal. Lesson learned.

this week: We’ve got something going on practically every night this week – volleyball on Monday, Creighton baseball on Tuesday, a group run on Wednesday, and then we’re heading to Lincoln on Friday afternoon for the half marathon on Sunday. Dinners will be all over the map this week, so we’re focusing on hearty lunches (carb loading!) and lots of healthy snacks this week, and of course, tons and tons of water. Looking forward to having a little more time once this race is over to be better about meal planning and cooking again, so tell me – have you made anything tasty lately that we should try?!

Here’s what we cooked last week…

SWEET POTATO POTSTICKERS + STIR-FRY NOODLES

I mentioned these potstickers last week, and am happy to report that they reheated really well straight from frozen. We have another batch in the freezer yet, and will be happy to have them around for another quick weeknight meal. To make this meal a little heartier, I sautéed up some rice noodles with broccoli and carrots and soy sauce. Quick and easy!

BBQ BRISKET FLATBREADS

We finally used up the last of the leftover brisket that we froze way back on Super Bowl weekend. It held it’s flavor really well and went great on these pizzas. After I had all the ingredients on – thinly-sliced brisket, cheese, red onions, greens – I thought that BBQ sauce would make a nice addition, and it did. On night two of these (not pictured), I actually spread BBQ sauce on the naan breads before adding any of the other ingredients, which worked even better. Both nights we had some simple steamed veggies as a side, also.

BRATS WITH ONIONS + PEPPERS

You’re probably catching onto that if we cook at all on Thursday nights, it’s something super easy. We picked up brats, buns, and ready-made and seasoned fajita veggies at the store on our way home, and grilled, with some chips, guac, and beer on the side.

this week: We have a crazy couple weeks coming up, with the Lincoln Half Marathon as well as getting our house ready for our very first AirBnb guests (!), so the goal for these next few weeks is to just keep things as simple as possible. No elaborate meals or new recipes planned. Probably a lot of soups and sandwiches for work lunches, and using up what we’ve got in the freezer and cabinet for dinners. Nothing exciting, but that’s life right now!