Midweek Meal Inspo; Sausage Pasta, Fish Tacos, Cursed Lasagna & more

Now that we are back from our holidays, it’s time to get back to cooking dinner! This week has been really lovely when it comes to cooking dinner. When school was in session, Kai was really interested in cooking dinner, but it sounded like that was due to his cooking class at school. During the holiday, he hadn’t shown much interest but there had also not been time for us to really cook together while on holiday, as we mostly ate out. This week, he looked at the menu board in the kitchen, and stated he wanted to cook specific dishes, so that he could learn them. This is great to see. Amelia and Robin have also been asking to cook, so it’s been all hands on in the kitchen.

Cursed Lasagna (Creamy Chicken Lasagna)

We use to always ask our children what they want for dinner, and often they’d say things like “new” meal-we-often-have. This was really challenging at first, and when we had eaten classic lasagna, Mexican lasagna and then lasagna soup, the next time Kai asked for New Lasagna, I thought there is no way. Then, I found this creamy chicken lasagna and thought, here we go! It got nicknamed Cursed Lasagna, as it’s white like a ghost and makes no sense. This lasagna has two different cream and cheese layers, one warm and one cold. The warm one has you chop up an onion, add it to a pan with some oil, let it cook. Then add grated garlic, cook until fragrant, then add in some flour and cook a bit more. Then you can pour in double cream and chicken stock. Let it cook until thickened before adding in spinach. For the cold cheese layer, you can take a bowl and mix in mozzarella, ricotta, parm, an egg and Italian seasoning. You need to also shred some cooked chicken.

Then it’s down to layering. We added in the hot cream sauce, a layer of pasta sheets, then a layer of the cold cheese and a layer of shredded chicken, then a layer of pasta sheets and repeat. This goes in the oven for 45 minutes with tin foil, then a further 15 minutes after without tin foil. We ate ours with a salad and some garlic bread.

Fish Tacos with Flavored Rice

I should start this one off by saying I hate cooked fish. I do not like eating it, but we feel it’s important for our children to eat foods even if I personally do not like them, especially if they do. So, I took some cod and marinated it in olive oil, lime juice, paprika, and cumin. Then, I made a slaw of purple cabbage, guava nectar (honey works too), corn, salt, lime juice and mayo. I also mashed an avocado and made some rice with a chicken stalk cube in it. Then, I fried the fish in a bit of vegetable oil, until it was flaky and done. Everyone then made their own tacos with the fish, avocado and slaw. We also ate some beets with this too. When it comes to tacos, our favorite as a family is beef. Everyone picked these tacos as their second favorite, which is always nice to hear!

Sausage and Peppers Pasta

We have found a new, local butcher that does a bunch of different sausages! So, we have been trying them out. We went for some harissa sausages, but you can use any sausages. These ones were a bit spicy, but not too bad for all of us to eat. The pasta was easy to make – we took a deep pan and fried off the sausages in a little olive oil. We then removed them from the pan and added in a diced pepper and half a diced onion. Once that was cooked a bit, we poured in a can of chopped Italian tomatoes, a bit of water, and grated in some parm. We then added in some Italian seasoning, cut the sausages and threw them in, and let it all cook together. We boiled up some pasta, combined it, and and served with extra parm to grate.

Terrayki Chicken Bites with Egg Fried Rice

This is really a Hadley-Sullivan house staple. Dann makes the teriyaki sauce we use himself, but you can use store bought. For this recipe, we took chicken and chopped it into bite sized pieces. Then, Robin coated each piece in egg, and Kai coated each piece in a 50/50 mix of flour and corn starch. Then, we batch fried them in vegetable oil. I put them on a tray in the oven at low temperature once they were fried, to keep them warm. We cooked up some rice from the giant bag we were given, and once it was cooked through Amelia started on the egg fried rice. This is just two eggs in a wok, scrambled. Then we added in the rice, some frozen vegetable mix, and some soy sauce. Once everything was warmed through, we put it into a bowl. We then took the chicken, tossed it with the teriyaki sauce and added on sesame seeds and spring onions!

Beef Pho

Beef Pho is not actually a dish I make at all, but one we have almost every other week. It’s a family favorite! Dann spends ages making the broth; charring different veggies, creating a good base, and adding in things like soy sauce and fish sauce! Once the broth is done, we add in thin cut slices of beef to cook. We create our own bowls using rice noodles, spring onions, limes, sesame seeds, and the beef. I add chili oil to mine, Kai and Dann add hot sauce to theirs too. It’s a really tasty and filling meal that’s one of my favorites!

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