one pan chicken and veggies

Tonight for dinner, I give you another one-pan masterpiece.

Well, the term "masterpiece" is subjective.

It doesn't look like much, but there's nothing I love more than when dinner is simple to cook AND clean up.

The basic formula:
1. Line a sheet pan with foil and spray it with cooking spray.
2. Add meat and veggies
3. Spray with more cooking spray, season with salt and pepper and whatever else.
4. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes (depending on when the meat is done) while you relax and enjoy a glass of wine.

That's it.

Tonight's pan contained boneless chicken thighs seasoned with thyme, smoked paprika, and salt/ pepper. Plus cabbage and sweet potatoes.

Pretty much every vegetable tastes good roasted, and roasted cabbage is particularly good when it's this crispy and delicious. If you cut the sweet potato into small cubes, it cooks fast so it's all done at the same time.

I put this all on top of some greens with a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lime for a very non-boring salad.

pretty veggie pizza

It has been a long time since I've eaten pizza. Even longer since I've made a pizza.

How did I let that happen?? Pizza is delicious.
I have a feeling pizza's about to make it back into the rotation for a while.

I felt inspired by Smitten Kitchen's recent post on instagram, and planned to make some sort of pretty zucchini-ful pizza this week.
Then, I noticed that FG's fridge conveniently contained both yellow and green squash that he had no plans for... it was the universe aligning, really.

This pizza is very simple, very fresh, and very tasty.

It was the first time I've made my gluten free pizza crust with my new flour blend. (I can't find sorghum flour any more so I subbed millet flour and it behaves a little differently.)

You can use a store-bought crust, or make your own. My recipe is more like a very thin foccacia bread than a traditional pizza crust, but hey, I like it.

This was also the first time trying a pizza recipe with this much squash. I was a little worried that the squash would be too wet for a pizza and make everything soggy. So much could go wrong.

Spoiler: The squash wasn't soggy, and we ate practically the whole thing.

Ingredients:
1 GF pizza crust
1 jar of pizza sauce
thinly sliced yellow and green squash
salt, pepper, olive oil

Start with basic pizza assembly: top the crust with sauce, artfully arrange the veggies, and top with salt and pepper. FG got cheese on his half and I opted for none. That's the awesome thing about pizza; you get to make it how you want it.

Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes, until the crust is done and the zucchini gets a little crispy. Drizzle with olive oil and serve with extra pizza sauce, in case you happen to be one of those people who likes their meals extra saucy.

We both agreed that next time, we'd pile on more of the squash because they shrink up a little after baking.

Beef and veggies

I have been cooking.
Really.

I haven't blogged a lot lately. Since I've only been cooking for myself, I have leaned towards simple, low-fuss meals that don't exactly translate into a recipe.

Except, maybe they do.

Just because it's simple doesn't mean it's not a meal.
So, I'm sharing.

Today I made some beef and vegetables:

Cook in a pan on medium heat:
1 steak that your lovely mother put into your freezer when you were out of town, thawed and cut into thin strips
1/4 onion, chopped
salt and pepper

Cook until the meat has started to brown and your cat wakes up from her nap and meanders into the kitchen. Stir things every minute or so.

When the meat is mostly cooked, add in:
1 handful of kale, torn into pieces
1 cup-ish of that frozen vegetable medley of cauliflower, broccoli, and carrot that everyone has in the back of their freezer.

Let that cook in the hot pan, stirring a little, until the kale is deep green and wilted, and the other veggies have a little char on them.

Serve with some leftover brown rice, a small drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and a modestly priced pinot noir.

Towards the middle of the meal, if you toss a little gristle down to the cat, everyone is happy.