Dinners for the Week

mangosalsaresized
Originally uploaded by chibicap

Hey everyone! Well, ever since my mom left for the Philippines last Sunday, it's been the duty of Charlene and me to cook dinner for ourselves and for our father.

On Monday, we marinated some frozen tilapia filets (that we happened to come by in the refrigerator outside) with lemon pepper and melted butter. We baked it in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes in 400-degree heat, if I can recall. This dish was based off of a tilapia and mango salad entree I tried at Applebee's some time ago, so we decided to pair the fish with our own mango salad as well (pictured here). We found a mango salad recipe online but deviated from the ingredients the recipe called for since we didn't really have them. So we put:

1 mango, diced
diced tomatoes
diced yellow onion
chopped green onion
1 tblspn. jalapeno
1 tblspn. calamansi
1/2 can of corn
1 1/2 tblspn. cilantro

The corn was added since the salsa was admittedly too hot and acidic for our tastes. It sweetened the salsa a bit, balancing the flavors out... though the calamansi may have made the salsa too tangy to begin with (the recipe online required lime juice, not calamansi). Calamansi is a tropical fruit that resembles lemon, but is a tad sweeter and tangier, like an orange. Nevertheless, the salsa complimented the fish well.

On Tuesday, we tried the Hamburger and Macaroni Recipe from http://simplyrecipes.com. We also paired it with Corn Meal Muffins, which was a recipe on the back of the bag of cornmeal that we had purchased a few months ago from the grocery store. Charlene added a whole can of corn, though, to resemble the cornbread we tried at Souplantation which, too, has real kernels of corn inside.

We won't be cooking tonight, though, since my friend invited us to eat out for dinner. However, I'm looking forward to baking pan de sal and to trying out this Chicken Marinara Recipe that is also from the Simply Recipes website.

Well, until next time!

Hamburger and Macaroni Recipe

macaroni3resized
Originally uploaded by chibicap

My sister Charlene and I found this recipe on http://simplyrecipes.com/. We wanted to find a recipe we could make with the pound of elbow macaroni that's been sitting in our pantry for quite a while, which is why we tried this one out for last night's dinner. We made a few resourceful changes, though, like substituting the ground beef for ground turkey since that's what we had in our refrigerator. We didn't include celery seed, either, and we subbed the parsley with oregano. But a word of advice--two cups of macaroni can yield well over four servings... maybe even eight! So be careful when approximating your serving portion sizes.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 yellow onion, chopped (or mixed chopped green onion greens and yellow onion)
Olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Vegesal or other seasoned salt
Dash crushed red pepper
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1 large can (28 oz) of diced tomatoes
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 cups uncooked macaroni (use rice pasta for wheat-free version)


1. Get a large pot of hot water heating and begin cooking the macaroni as per the directions on the macaroni package.

2. In a skillet, brown the ground beef in a tablespoon of olive oil on high heat. Stir only infrequently so that the ground beef has an opportunity to brown.

3. In a large skillet, sauté chopped onion with a tablespoon of olive oil on medium high heat. Add the ground beef and lower the heat to medium. Add a dash of crushed red pepper. Add Vegesal or other seasoned salt. Add celery seed. Add canned tomatoes. Add Worcestershire sauce. Bring to a simmer and let simmer for 5 minutes. Mix in the drained and cooked macaroni and parsley. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

Serves 4.

Recipe Courtesy of Simply Recipes:
http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/000123hamburger_and_macaroni.php