Sunday Cooking: Building Blocks

I dunno, you guys, this week I was not feeling it.

My general malaise is probably related to the fact that I am fighting the flu/strep. It kicked up mid-Sunday, and I've been in the grips of it ever since. Worked a half-day on Monday, and took all day today off. If the fever breaks today I'll go in tomorrow. Hopefully.

I still managed to get some cooking done on Sunday. I call this the Polack version of the foodstyle:



All meat, just like every good Polish meal, heehee!

I made my standard meatloaf. (Hubby's request.)



And Brown Sugar Chicken in the slow cooker.



Then I fried up some bacon, just because.



Who needs anything else?

KIDDING. It wasn't all meat. I also baked two kinds of squash, and two pans of roasted veggies: cauliflower, carrots, and some yukon gold potatoes.





Problem was, I didn't really want any of it. The chicken was a little too weirdly sweet and vinegary (it got better after a couple of days), and everything else was just...okay. I should clarify, my husband has been gobbling it up so the taste of it was fine. I just wasn't interested.

Maybe being sick had something to do with it, but it wasn't until today that I realized the problem: all I had made were building blocks for "real dishes". I'm so used to roasting squash as a precursor to making soup or cooking a meat to then put into a casserole that when faced with the foods as themselves, I was bored.

So today I took the chicken and made it into this chicken kale casserole. Mmmm! (The proportions on the recipe are weird. I used a quarter of the ricotta and it came out fine.)



I also have plans to make a cheddar, bacon and spinach quiche (thus the bacon), and maybe a kale brussels sprouts bacon salad. Depending on how I am feeling as the week progresses.

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Hillary has been doing a hilarious comparison of Pinterest food portraits to what she has made, called Pinterest Versus Reality. Since Pinterest is my new recipe book, I have two to share!

This was the original Brown Sugar Chicken versus what I made:

Source: crockpot365.blogspot.com via LowFatDressing on Pinterest

This was the Chicken Kale Casserole.

Source: marthastewart.com via LowFatDressing on Pinterest

Funny thing is, the casserole recipe and picture came from Martha Stewart, and the chicken from a blogger. Who would have ever thunk that Martha Stewart would have the more realistic food photography?!