| Sunday: | Homemade green chorizo, caramelized onion tacos with grilled nopales salad |
| Monday: | Fish Skewers with Tarragon Vinegrette & herbed, parmesan orzo |
| Tuesday: | Leftovers: Cheese tostadas with warm spinach, green chorizo, onion & jicama salad (DIY) |
| Wednesday: | Dinner out with friends…Plum in Oakland |
| Thursday: | Mushroom, Onion & Gruyere Quiche with side salad (DIY) |
| Friday: | Leftovers: Quiche |
| Saturday: | Happy St. Paddy’s Day! Irish Lamb Stew & Soda Bread |
We’re spanning the globe with this weekly menu…from Mexico to France to Ireland! The beginning of this week is inspired by a Rick Bayless show I randomly caught a few weeks ago. I never watch his television show, but Christian and I love Rick Bayless’ food. I’m a bit embarassed to say that we’ve often gone on a run to the Union Square’s Macy’s food court just to get his tortilla soup. And when we were in Chicago last year we had brunch at Frontera Grill and were kicking ourselves for not hitting up his other places while we were there. I honestly think if we had another night there we would have gone back to Frontera Grill for dinner as well! The man knows his Mexican food…and as I’ve often said, we honestly both think we were Mexican in our previous lives. So when I saw Rick Bayless quickly and easily whipping up homemade Green Chorizo and then making scrumptions looking tacos and a Mexican take on the traditional warm spinach and bacon salad I was hooked!
Homemade chorizo sounds scary, but it seems super easy since you use ground pork. I’ll probably skip the dried spinach powder and just puree in a bit of spinach. Before you actually cook the chorizo, carmelize some onions and then add the chorizo in and finish cooking. Layer it into some taco shells with your favorite cheese and you’re ready to go! We’ll throw together a grilled nopales salad (I also add in a fresh roasted red pepper) to go alongside, close our eyes and pretend that we’re sitting on a beach in Mexico!
For the salad using the chorizo leftovers, Rick Bayless just added some olive oil and I think a bit of red wine vinegar to make the filling in the pan more dressing-like. He then filled a big bowl with spinach, sliced in some peeled jicama (like apple slices) and then poured the warm chorizo, onion dressing on top. We’ll toast up some cheese tostadas or quesadillas to make it a bit more filling. Easy leftovers!
We’re having a rare middle of the week dinner date with friends and then using up some frozen pie crust that I’m worried will go bad soon to make a quiche. I love quiche…or really anything with eggs, but I also love how easy it is. Serve with a side salad and a glass of wine, simple and delicious.
The end of the week is inspired by St. Patrick’s Day. While neither Christian nor I really have any significant Irish heritage, I think it’s always fun to honor holidays through food. So I searched around on the internet a bit and found a website called Taste of Home that has a section of “traditional” St. Patrick’s Day Recipes. This lamb stew and soda bread sounded good so we’ll give it a whirl. There was also a crock-pot lamb stew recipe I found that looked kind of interesting so I might decided to substitute the stew recipe at the last minute…we’ll see.
Phew, long menu entry…which must mean I’m excited about the dinners that lie ahead. I hope you are too…happy eating!