In February I finally decided to get dinners organized. Our typical routine would usually include my husband calling every day around 5 asking what was for dinner and my exasperated response would always be “I don’t know!”. It cause me so much anxiety and created a lot of tension at the end of each work day.
I was overwhelmed with the amount of options for meal planning. Do I order meal kits? Should I meal prep in advance? Where do the recipes come from? Ultimately I settled on a system that has been working well for our family for the last two months.
Over the weekends I select 4 recipes for the week online. My husband chooses the two he’d like to cook and I take the remaining two. I then get a blank sheet of paper (it’s how my brain works best) and write out the date of the week and list each recipe under our names with the day of the week we will prepare the meal. I cook Mondays and Wednesdays and my husband cooks Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am sure you’re wondering about the rest of the week – Friday through Sunday is considered the weekend and we either go out, get takeout or one of us feels motivated to cook something – it’s essentially whatever we feel like doing.
After dating my sheet and listing the recipes, I go through each and list the groceries we need to purchase to make the meals for the week. I place my order on Kroger pickup for Monday and we’re ready to go!
I’ve learned a lot about this process and we’ve been making lots of tweaks to the recipes we’ve selected. This week was particularly complex because I happened to choose all of the recipes from an Australian website. All of the measurements were in grams and some of the ingredients I’d never even heard of! Needless to say this week we implemented a lot of creativity.
The original recipe was essentially trout on top of a “salad” of cucumber and pineapple. We are trying to eat lighter as we head into spring but this was a bit too light. I decided to turn it into a true salad and create more of a pineapple salsa to go on a bed of romaine with the trout. I also was not pleased with the seasonings as the trout was meant to be “cajun” seasoned. My husbands parents are from Louisiana so I have developed a taste for true low country flavors. Many adjustments were made.
INGREDIENTS
- 2 tbsp Tony Chachere’s
- 1 tsp each ground cumin, coriander, sweet smoked paprika (pimenton) and fennel seeds
- 4 tbs olive oil
- 2 ocean trout fillets, skin removed (optional)
- 2 heads romaine lettuce
- 20 oz. can of pineapple chunks (drained)
- 2 Lebanese cucumbers, sliced
- 1 long red chili, seeds removed, thinly sliced
- Juice of 1 lime
- 1/2 cup coriander leaves to garnish
DIRECTIONS
- Combine the spices, 2 tbsp oil and 1 tsp salt in a large bowl. Add the fish, turning to coat, cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes to marinate.
- Meanwhile, place the pineapple, cucumber, chili and lime juice in a bowl, season with salt and pepper, toss to combine and refrigerate.
- Heat the remaining 2 tbsp oil in a frypan over medium heat and cook the fish for 2-3 minutes each side until almost cooked through. Remove from the pan, loosely cover with foil, then set aside to rest for 5 minutes.
- Place on a bed of romaine lettuce and flake the trout over the top, garnish with salsa. Sprinkle with coriander to serve.
