MONDAY: Buttery Italian Shrimp Pasta

I was looking for a way to use up some shrimp we had on hand. I was inspired by this recipe to make a buttery, lemony italian shrimp over spaghetti pasta. I literally detailed the already skinned shrimp and added them into a baking dish with butter, italian seasoning, salt and pepper, and some chopped up green onion. Now, I did over-bake them, and the shrimp ended up chewy. It only takes a few minutes, to heat it all up and get the juices flowing. While it was in the oven, I cooked the spaghetti noodles. I took the shrimp out of the oven and poured half of it over each bowl of spaghetti. It was a simple as that!

TUESDAY: Cranberry Turkey Salad

It's pretty obvious that this recipe was created based around Thanksgiving leftovers. But it seemed pretty yummy, and I wanted to try it out! Thanksgiving isn't celebrated here. So it was now or never. This was actually my least favourite that I've tried recently. I was NOT a fan of the dressing. I added in some lemon juice, and that did help, but it was just too sickly sweet for my liking. I'd also definitely stick to doing leftover turkey. A whole turkey would provide much nicer meat than cooking off chunks of turkey. The texture was very odd.

WEDNESDAY: Bourbon Street Chicken

This recipe is actually a favourite of mine. I tried it for the first time a couple years ago and have been making it ever since when I want some good comfort food, or something easy. This recipe is easy as pie in the slow cooker! Perfect for someone who's on the go. I don't change anything about this recipe, although by now I don't measure everything out perfectly, I just toss in the general amounts. YUM. Add some broccoli to balance out this definitely-not-healthy meal.

THURSDAY: Take Away Pizza

Thursday was a very long day. I was in Dublin for the day, and Killian and I both got home late. So we weren't even sitting down to think about dinner until about 8pm. After this long day on top of a long week, we just decided to go for some take away. Our fave right now is a place that sells pizza and burgers and such. I went for Hawaiian on my half of the pizza. We ordered it off of a deal that includes chips (french fries) and onions. Greasy, yummy goodness.

FRIDAY: Ham & Bean Soup

This one I've been wanting to make for a while. Sometimes you just need a good ham and bean. I've never made it myself, though. I always go the lazy route and heat up the soup from a can. But I wanted to make this a little bit healthier than the can, and it's also not a thing here! So we had an American night and curled up with this yummy success. With extra veggies, this was my pick of the week.

SATURDAY: Burrito Bowls

The last new recipe attempt of the week was a burrito bowl. I definitely did not follow this exactly, but it came out really nice. I'll tell you what toppings we did go for:

Minced beef - I added salt, pepper, and cumin to give it a little flavour, and cooked it in coconut oil to make it a bit healthier.

Mexican rice - I think I am finally getting the hang of making restaurant-style mexican rice! I cooked off some white rice as normal. Then, to make it "mexican", I baked two tomatoes, two cloves of garlic, half an onion, and half a red pepper in the oven with some olive oil, salt, and pepper for about 30-45 minutes (until the tomato skin was peeling away and things weren't too brown). I literally threw this all in the blender along with the juice from one lime and some salt and pepper. I tossed this puree into the pot with the cooked rice and kept it on low heat for a little bit while I finished up dinner.

Veggies - chopped lettuce, corn, chopped red pepper, mixed beans (black beans are HARD to find here, apparently), red onion, and chopped tomatoes.

Dressing - I wanted to give this a dressing since it's more of a salad, but I think with the seasoned meat and flavourful rice, it wasn't necessary. But I did a blue cheese dressing with some crumbled blue cheese, greek yogurt, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, garlic powder, and salt and pepper. I threw that all in the blender to get a creamy texture. It definitely came out tasty, but was too much flavour on top of everything else, in both of our opinions.

SUNDAY: Burgers

We finished off the week with some regular burgers. I didn't take photos because they didn't come out very... pretty. Yummy? Yes. Pretty? No. It was a classic small, squat patty with the large, flat bun problem. We were left satisfied but with extra bread bites. The only thing unusual with these was too make guac and add that as the spread over ketchup/mustard/mayo. A nice, simple way to end the week!

My fave guac recipe:

2 generous pinches salt

1/2 yellow onion

1-1.5 limes, juiced

1.5-2 avocados, skinned and pitted

1 small handful cilantro

I prefer my guac creamy, so I throw it all in a blender with a splash of water and it comes out soooo good!

What I Ate This Week: 14-20 September