Midweek Meal Inspo; Pesto Chicken, Shrimp Sandos, Fried Rice & more

Another batch of meals has been made, as every single day we do eat dinner! As it’s been nice, warm weather out here lately, so we have been having meals that are a bit lighter and take less cooking to do then others. Some of this weeks foods came as suggestions from Robin and Amelia, while others were classics that we felt like having. Amelia was the biggest kitchen helper this week and did a lot of cooking with me, which was super fun! Anyway, let’s get into some meal inspiration for the week!

Baked Pesto Chicken with Rice and Salad

Using the oven might not be exactly what you have in mind in this heat, but we did use the oven for this baked pesto chicken with rice and salad. It’s a rather simple recipe and you can use store bought pesto or homemade pesto. We make our pesto by putting a handful of spinach and a handful of basil into our blender. We then add in some pine nuts, olive oil and a garlic clove. This then gets blended. We left our pesto chunky to spread on top of our chicken breasts, and then baked them in the oven. Once they were cooked through, we added a bit of mozzarella cheese to the top, and popped them back in to melt the cheese. Robin and Amelia aren’t the biggest fans of pesto, so we actually just put BBQ sauce on their chicken breasts – making this a very easy meal to customize. For the sides, we made some rice on the stove top, adding a stock cube into the water and then buttering it when it was done, as well as a bagged salad, which I added leftover beetroot, bell pepper, and avocado to, to make it more fun.

Cheese Burger Tacos with veggie sticks

One of our lighter meals this week, we made these Cheese Burger Tacos that came from TikTok. They felt like they fit into Kai’s want of a “chaos meal” – a meal that seems to have been dreamed up by a teenager. It’s a pretty simple meal to make – you just need to take a tortilla and spread a layer of beef mince onto it. This then kind of acts like a smash burger. In a dry pan that is already heated up, you will want to put the meat side down and let it cook up. Once it is fully browned and carnalized, you can then flip it over and let the other side of the tortilla cook. You should season your beef with salt and pepper, and can also add chopped onions. Once the burger is done, you can then add cheese to the meat side, let that melt, and then add toppings. We choose chopped tomatoes, pickles and lettuce – much like you’d have on a burger. I had mustard on mine, Kai and Amelia had burger sauce, and Robin had ketchup. We served these with some carrot sticks, bell pepper sticks and cucumber sticks as a light dinner.

Spam Fried Rice

Though to some Spam might be a strange thing, Spam is the only canned meat I have ever enjoyed. Spam Fried Rice is a family favorite in our house (everyone has made it a few times!), and it’s a quick, two pan meal that only takes 20 minutes to make. First, you want to put on a pot of rice to cook. While this is cooking, you want to take a wok or wok-like pot, and add a bit of vegetable oil to it. Chop up your spam into a bunch of cubes and fry it off, on high heat, until crispy. Take out the spam and put it in a bowl. Next, chop up some canned pineapple and fry it off in the same wok, until it’s just changed in color, and add it into the bowl of spam. Crack some eggs into a bowl and mix them, then scramble them in the same wok, cooking quickly. Then, you will want to add some frozen vegetables. Often we add peas, but this time we did a more general vegetable pack. After that’s started to cook, add back in your spam and pineapple. At this point, you want to add in some of your teriyaki sauce. This can be homemade or store bought. Once everything is warm, your rice should be ready, so you can add that back in and then add more sauce if you’d like. Mix everything well, and I normally top with green onions and sesame seeds.

Shrimp Sandos with fries and veggies

Robin is one of the biggest fans of shrimp and it felt like quite some time since we had last had shrimp! So, we had some simple shrimp sandos! Amelia fried up a bunch of shrimp in some olive oil, salt and pepper. You could all cajun seasoning if your family enjoys that! These shrimp were put in brioche rolls, which I cut down the middle, with some chopped lettuce. Kai and Amelia put tartar sauce on theirs, while Robin went with ketchup. We also had lemons to squeeze over the top. This was served with waffle fries and some veggies. We went with courgettis and bell peppers, pan fried in vegetable oil, with aromat seasoning. Though this was a simple meal, it was very much enjoyed by everyone – even though we got too many shrimps and ended up with some leftovers to make into a noodle dish the next day!

Creamy Mushroom Pasta

Called Mario Pasta by our kids (due to the pasta being the same as the pasta from the Super Mario Bros Movie), creamy mushroom pasta is a very simple and easy pasta dish that everyone always loves. This time, we had one of Amelia’s friends over, who wasn’t a fan of mushrooms, so we cooked the mushrooms separately for everyone to add in and mix. In a pot of boiling, salted water, put on the amount of pasta you want to cook. In another pan, cook off some sliced mushrooms, diced onions, and grated garlic in butter. Once these are cooked down, add in a tablespoon of flour and allow it to cook out a bit. Then add in some double cream and chicken stock. You will want to add in the amounts based on your taste and the amount of pasta you want to make. We had 6 people eating, so used an entire medium container of double cream and then slowly added in chicken stock until it looked like enough to coat the pasta. If you want to make this vegetarian, you can use vegetarian stock instead of chicken stock. The sauce should be bubbling away and thickening, you can add in a handful of grated parmesan, black pepper, and some handfuls of spinach. After about 15 minutes, the sauce should be thick enough and your pasta done. You can strain your pasta and add it to the sauce, stirring. We also threw together a salad and some garlic bread, as per the movie.

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