Sunday Cooking: Wrap it Up

In my last post, I mentioned that I had been inspired by a recipe post from Eating Well about burrito/wrap ideas. None of the actual recipes in the slideshow intrigued me, but I wrote down a list of ones that we would like:

-chicken salad wrap (with celery, grapes, ff mayo, and some shredded lettuce)
-fish tacos/burrito (with the fishsticks still in my freezer and a spicy cabbage coleslaw)
-BBQ chicken burrito (with pinto beans, and avocado for Hubby)
-scrambled egg wrap (with chopped basil pesto chicken sausage and sauteed peppers and onions)
-fajitas (with strip steak, peppers, carrots, onions and leftover pinto beans and avocado)

Each one could be put together in minutes each night; all I had to do was shop smart and prepare some of the base dishes.



I'm not a bargain shopper, but it's occurred to me that this weekly-cooking thing saves us a lot of money. This is what $75 buys.

There was dairy and meat....



There were dry groceries...



There were fruits and vegetables.



Of course, not everything pictured will be eaten this week; I don't have a plan for the potatoes or tortellini but they looked really tasty so I will figure out how to incorporate them for next week. And I have in my fridge right now a few items from last week's shopping to be used this week, like eggs and basil pesto sausage and dried beans. 

Since I had to work on Sunday, I did my weekly cooking on Saturday afternoon. I started with the one that would take the longest, the pinto beans. They came out so amazing a couple of weeks ago I decided to make another pot, this time leaving them for sides dishes instead of mashing them up into soup. I cooked the beans using Alton Brown's method here; adding in the seasoning bundle and then the salt after a half-hour is positively genius. Who knew beans could soak up THAT much flavor without drenching them in fats? Amazing. I skip the soak session; I've never seen beans need it. Of course, you can use his method for any bean type; he had black beans in his, I had pinto at home.



While the beans simmered for a couple of hours, I seasoned the boneless chicken thighs by tossing them in olive oil, kosher salt, and Penzey's Mural of Flavor seasoning, then baked/roasted them for 45 minutes in a 350 degree oven.




I had some leftover chicken from the previous week, so I cut that up into chicken salad with celery and grapes. It was so good I ate it for two days!





The last recipe I made was tangy coleslaw. This one I made up as I went along, but was a half-bag of shredded cabbage, fatfree mayo, dijon mustard, celery seed, kosher salt, and more Mural of Flavor. (I find it brightens every dish.)



The rest of what I did was veggie and fruit prep. I am far more likely to eat them if I wash and cut them up beforehand. It's silly but I'm surprised at how less likely I am to throw away rotting veggies if I do this.





Hmmm, I think I figured out why it works: when I got home from my go-live on Sunday and dove into my chicken salad on whole wheat tortilla with coleslaw and carrot chips on the side, Hubby decided to make himself chicken with sauteed peppers in the spinach pesto wrap. Somehow I think he would have picked something else if that big bag of sliced peppers weren't sitting in the fridge...

It's only Tuesday, but working on Sunday has made it seem much later in the week. I'm pretty beat by it all, but I have to confess: I am really looking forward to my fish tacos tonight! I am glad I came up with this theme week of burrito/wraps; it's a way to have a lot of similar dishes without being too repetitive or too varied.

Any suggestions for other theme weeks I could try?