Chili lime salmon with honey is a DELICIOUS version of my best ever cast iron skillet salmon. Just 6 ingredients, 15 minutes, and gluten free, dairy free salmon dinner can be yours!
It's 6 ingredients of love, basically. How are we feeling about a 20 minute salmon dinner that feels slightly Mexican, slightly fine for any side dish you like, slightly practically perfect in every way?
We feel great about it, right?
...This version of chile relleno casserole is made with ground turkey in one skillet and has just a few ingredients! I love this for a low carb Mexican dinner, or serve this with my favorite red rice for a yummy burrito bowl variation. This tastes like a chile relleno in a bowl and is SO yummy and easy to make!
Definitely the easy weeknight dinner we have been waiting for: blanket it with melty cheese and call it GOOD.
...NO CHOP. This is how we dinner. No fresh, no chop, no effort, just massive flavor with pantry staples that we know and love.
With Cinco de Mayo on a Sunday this year, I'm definitely not going to be drinking/eating tacos all day and night. I'll be doing laundry and packing lunches and I'm completely fine with that, you know? This, to me, is a perfect Sunday meal. Cozy and comforting but still light, and full of flavor.
...It is three and a half weeks until Cinco de Mayo. And, in very inappropriate cultural appropriation, I'm super into this holiday for zero reason besides I REALLY like Mexican food. Like, top three flavor profiles for sure. Indian food ranks too.
It's also, of course (not to most people, I know), Master's week, and snacks for this weekend are an absolute must. This pepita salsa is gluten free and vegan (if you eat honey or use agave) so can appeal to a ton of people, but has huge flavor and SPICE because we use a whole jalapeno, we don't take the seeds out, and we live for it, JVN style.
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We are making chips for dinner a thing. Because we survived the hurricane!
Kidding. The rain did zilch here, which of course is a good thing, and it definitely did some huge damage elsewhere. And honestly even if you aren't in hurricane-land chips for dinner just sounds like a perfect idea, right? You know it does, admit it.
Chilaquiles is a generic Mexican dish that varies from region to region and household to household. It mostly involves sauce and fried tortillas. In this case we're using leftover chips, the few handfuls at the bottom of the bag, the leftovers from takeout, you get it. This version is super simple: you can make your own chicken OR use leftovers, and the sauce comes from a can. I love all things verde, but red enchilada sauce would be delicious here as well. The result is a 30-ish minute meal that includes chicken, veggies, and chips, so a well-rounded meal with tons of flavor and precious little effort.
We win Monday!
...I'm on a very annoying and very necessary mission. 
The mission is to reduce waste, and you're joining me today. I HATE food waste. I hate all waste, really, but I also know that it's a part of life (don't even get me started on the unnecessary packaging that is involved in having children), and since I'm not yet ready to go full no-waste (have you seen documentaries about those people? It's inspiring and also seems hard), food waste is really where I focus my efforts, mainly because it's easily avoidable compared to other things. A little bit of thought and creativity can go a long way, and today we're tackling condiments. Specifically, salsa! I was rummaging around the fridge a few weeks ago and realized we had four types of salsa. Some in little ramekins from takeout (you can use that stuff you know...) and a few jars with an inch or two of salsa. Not quite enough to put out for chips and dip, but not bad or old at all.
By the way, expiration dates literally have nothing to do with food going bad or being unsafe, even with meat and dairy. Literally nothing. They are dates used for the producer to "talk" to the grocer and to give the consumer (you) some information about when the food might not be perfect anymore. Imperfect food is not unsafe to eat, and usually doesn't even taste different. This is not my opinion, this is a fact. Food is bad when it has a strange smell, grows mold or something else, or has a physical sign that it is bad. You of course are in charge of when you throw things out, but throwing things out because they have passed an arbitrary date is willful waste, so keep that in mind when doing purges and cleaning out. If nothing else, it's a money saver to not constantly throw away things you purchase.
SO WITH THAT, I had all of this salsa and no plan for it. And I had chicken, and I always have rice. So I made this super duper quick seared chicken, reduced the salsa together into a sauce, and served it over rice in half an hour. I've made this several times since with other salsa, and the fun thing about this is that it tastes different but familiar each time. Salsa usually involves a base of onions and garlic which add tons of flavor without any chopping on your part. I've also chopped up extra onions, peppers, and random veggies (see: no waste!) and simmered them in the sauce, and they turn out delicious as well with zero effort. This is all about use-what-you-have, with delicious results. It feels GREAT to get a few items out of the fridge without throwing them straight in the trash.
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Monday food/gift food/make-ahead food, YES. 
Also tastes like salsa verde that you made yourself so double YES.
Hi! How was your weekend? We had a whirlwind of moving some furniture OUT, which made room for my brain to create new projects for us in the next 17 weeks (omg), and next on the list is paint Beck's new room, secure a toddler bed, and move her next door so we can organize the baby room. I'm not quite sure she understands what's happening with all of that, but there are currently no fewer than 7 pillows on the floor of the empty room so she enjoys the rolling-around-without-getting-in-trouble aspect of the space so far. Also please feel free to educate me on kids room Ikea hacks that are easy and cheap. Like...really easy.
So this dinner. It's the perfect been-working-on-the-house meal because it can be made in advance OR doesn't take long at all to make fresh. I made this last week while Beck napped and it was all I could do to not eat a massive second lunch right on the spot. I took half of this to friends of mine who just had twins, and saved the other half for dinners while Jay has been gone for work. Chicken seared in tons of spices, shredded to absorb sauce. Roasted tomatillos and veggies blended super quickly to make a hugely flavorful sauce without any chopping. Fresh cilantro + lime + garlic, jasmine rice to balance the whole thing.
I kind of had in my mind at first to make this more decadent, like an enchiladas suiza or similar with sour cream or some kind of melty cheese all up in this. That would be DELICIOUS, but the mom that was receiving this is off dairy because one of her babies has a milk allergy (just one of them, weird huh), so I kept this super light and dairy free which I think I loved even more.
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Two more days!
Until taco day, which feels wildly culturally appropriating and also I could eat Mexican food three or more times per week and be completely fine with it. The flavors plus ability to go super fresh and healthy or....not at all are so appealing, plus avocado+cilantro+lime on everything is the best flavor combination ever. Aaaaaand now I want Mexican for lunch.
There's an entire Mexican Food category on this site that will take you far in life, and here are a few of our all-time favorite ideas for this weekend! Make a day of eating Mexican foods, this Saturday deserves it.
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We made it to May! And now it's only a few more days until Cinco de Mayo and right after that it's Memorial Day and then vacations and 4th of July and two of my besties are having babies and HOW IS IT TIME TO START PLANNING THANKSGIVING. 
But really. Does one ever mature enough to accept that they are old enough to experience the passing of time at a faster rate or is it just....too fast all the time until I die?
Let's not think too hard about that. Tacos! Light, healthy, vegetarian tacos, to be exact. I'm a huge fan of Buffalo-flavored anything, and have been seeing cauliflower based dishes all over the internet. I love cauliflower in general, and the idea of it as a meat substitute appealed to me so much - the texture and chew from it plus extra vitamins and low fat/calories YES PLEASE.
So we are having Buffalo Cauliflower Tacos. I didn't do any kind of breading or frying for the sake of our bellies and the smell of our houses. Instead, the cauliflower gets roasted until blackened at the edges, then a super quick buffalo sauce goes all over everything. You can dress your tacos up however you'd like, but I'm a huge fan of lettuce (cabbage can get kind of crunchy and overpower the soft cauliflower), queso fresco, green onion, and lime. I ditched the blue cheese and celery for this version because I think it's kind of obvious BUT those flavors go great with buffalo, so have at it if you have those ingredients on hand!
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I adore this, is what you should know first. Everyone else adores this, is a very close second. 
A million years ago when I started to like cooking but didn't have a huge skillset yet, I watched A LOT of Food Network, which morphed into me watching Rachael Ray nearly daily, which was probably a strange thing to do at age 23 or something. I learned a ton, though, and often mimicked recipes I saw on her and other's shows. This chicken chili was inspired by a talk show, is what you should know.
In the last ten years or so (why. how.), I've made versions of this chili over and over again, to great results and very few leftovers each time. The concept is simple: some kind of peppers that you roast yourself, chicken/garlic/onion, white beans, canned green chiles, stock, done. Sometimes I add lots of different types of peppers, sometimes an extra jalapeno or two. Sometimes I use leftover shredded chicken, sometimes I use ground, sometimes I poach and shred my own and use the poaching liquid instead of stock.
The end result is hugely flavorful each time, and the balance of flavors + nutrition is so satisfying here. Toppings are a must, as with any Mexican-inspired dish, and this should probably definitely be included in your weekend - this weekend if it's cold, or in two weeks for Cinco de Mayo! OR OR OR you make a double batch now and freeze half for Cinco. Meal prep.
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For Taco Tuesday hard-shell tacos, DUH.
We have less than a month until Cinco de Mayo! This is excellent news because MEXICAN FOOD OBVS. Mexican and Indian are my true all the time, tried and true, even love the leftovers, favorite cuisines of all time. We eat a variation of each at least once per week, and I love that Mexican food specifically lends itself to so many different types of foods, uses for extra veggies, all of the good stuff. Plus: flavor. condiments. cilantro.
To start off this celebration of Mexican fare, I went super basic and probably not very authentic at all. I am a huge sucker for plain ground beef, though, and this version is super simple and foolproof - no seasoning packet necessary. I use the same spice blend with crumbled tofu, ground chicken, even fish flaked for tacos, and the results are delicious and adored each time. How you use the beef is up to you - hard shell tacos are so fun and easy, but this is great on salads, in burritos, or as a part of any other Mexican meal you enjoy. I love making a batch of this at the beginning of the week and using it several ways for a few meals.
...It's a baked sweet potato that tastes like the inside of a beef burrito! 
This is definitely one of my new favorite dinners; stuffing anything into a sweet potato. We first did this in January when Jay was doing Whole30, and it somehow feels fun to stuff a meal into a potato and call it a health food. Sweet potatoes are one of the Whole30 go-tos for filling but compliant meals, and we happen to love them. Specifically, I love the sweet+spicy combo of topping these with jalapenos, and the filling is super simple with ground beef and fajita veggies.
You can swap out the meat for ground chicken or turkey, or make these all vegetarian with extra veggies. DEFINITELY add cheese and/or sour cream if you aren't avoiding dairy; I love topping these with all sorts of things just like a burrito or taco.
These do take a bit of time because the potatoes themselves take some time to bake, but you get the rest of the meal done while the potatoes work and the whole thing is ready in about an hour. You can also roast a bunch of sweet potatoes on the weekend for extra prep help, then just warm them back up when you are making the filling for your potato.
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Because football! And because snacks. 
And because we need snacks with our football, right? Especially because for those of us that don't 1. understand and 2. care about the sport, snacks are kind of all we have left this time of year.
Jay, for his part, was very misleading about how much he liked sports when we were dating. Looking back, I could have SWORN that he didn't care a ton, was all hippie and cool, cared about random bands and comedians and thought that too much money was injected into sports. He loved golf, but that was different.
Love is blind, people, love is blind.
Between Fantasy Football/NFL and college, this time of year has us talking about football daily and watching it several times per week, mind you Jay will claim up and down that he hardly watches it and "most guys like watch so much more, we don't even have CABLE!" The last part is true, we cancelled cable because Jay begged me to. I don't actually mind it, but I do like making fun of Jay for "not liking sports that much," because I'm all about embracing vices and true loves.
Like Jay, my true who love who prefers to eat low carb and vegetarian a lot of the time. This is a definitely vegan dish and a low-carb not-so-much dish, but it is suuuuuper healthy for you and you are definitely not required to eat it with chips. I call it a salsa because it's GREAT with chips, but it's also great cold over rice, as a side dish for tacos or burritos, or over greens as a salad. Maybe some feta or sharp cheddar on top, I don't know. ...
Don't leave, I promise you'll like it. 
I made us salsa! Actually I made some other people salsa, last weekend when we went to a no-kids pool party and it was the best thing ever. People deserve to not be fearful of their children dying in the water while they enjoy themselves at least once per year, I'm sure of it. Maybe twice.
So, to celebrate, I blended up some of the crazy farmer's market stuff we had going on and called it salsa.
I was actually going to make green tomato salsa which also sounds delicious BUT I was reserving the green tomatoes for something else and the cucumbers are just insane right now. So! Salsa it was. The result was cool and refreshing but spicy and tangy from the pepper and the lime. I went for it hardcore and used the entire jalapeno and this was SPICY, but that of course depends on your jalapeno and your definition of spicy. I opted out of cilantro because I'm not sure about it with apple and some people are SO against cilantro existing in the world, you know?
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Sounds weird! But isn't, I promise. 
True life, one of our favorite things about Belize was the food at the lodge where we stayed. I know this isn't entirely shocking, but hear me out. It wasn't like hotel food at all. Instead, it was dishes that were comforting and familiar but with little twists that added freshness and flavor and felt decidedly jungle-esque, aka my favorite new genre of food that I just made up.
This is a version of one of the dinners we had - veggie enchiladas with mushroom sauce. We didn't really know what to expect when we made the order (each meal had a veg and meat option and that was it), but I love mushrooms and Jay doesn't and he miraculously agreed to eat them this one night so marriage win there. The result was fully decadent but somehow light at the same time because of so many veggies stuffed in.
I made these really simple with 2 types of green peppers and onions, sauteed to taste like fajita veggies. The veggies are wrapped in tortillas with cheese, skipping the "authentic" step of dunking tortillas in oil or sauce before you wrap them because I have zero time. The sauce is mushrooms and garlic cooked wayyyyy down and chopped finely so they almost mimic ground beef, then drowned in sour cream and heavy cream because you've earned it.
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Because naturally. Sliced steak with huge flavor just screams modern Mexican to me. Trendy Mexican? Fusion? I don't know. What I DO know is that I like it a lot. 
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Because of course. It's almost the biggest taco day of the year, right? Or is that every Tuesday? It's hard to tell. 
But anyway. Tacos are trendy but classic, can be healthy or not so much, can suit gluten free or dairy free or vegetarian or vegan diets, and are FUN. And food should be fun, right?
Here are some of my favorites.
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Because Cinco week!
I feel like it's my duty to announce that I can't believe how the year is flying, but I know you feel the same way. You have to! It's nuts. May is Memorial Day which is summer. Jay and I both have trips planned out into September, and they don't feel that far away. Living in the moment is killer when the moments zoom in such a fashion, you know?
You know.
But this week. The week that I could have thrown 1,837 new Mexican recipes at you because it's my favorite food ever ever ever (tied with Indian and Italian and Japanese and Thai....?), and I find that it's simple enough to make variations of Mexican food on weeknights. We have it a night or two per week, and change up the dish based on what we have in the fridge and what we feel like.
Rice, though, is almost always a staple. I make a green cilantro lime rice that is killer good (need to update the recipe but the gist is here), and red rice that is similar to the rice from this tlapeno that my friend Belen's mother taught me how to make. The key is to use enough water to cook the rice and have tomato sauce on top of that in terms of liquid-to-rice ratio. Chicken stock/bouillon is key here too, but you could use veg to keep this truly vegetarian. Vegan! It's vegan with veg stock! Unless you top it with cheese and swirl in some butter right at the end, but that's not technically part of the recipe.
...I wish I had 5 soups for you, but alas. Maybe at some point. 
But!
I've started to feature some new and old Mexican dishes on my Insta, and will continue to do so for the next week until the most glorious of all the food holidays. It's still kind of chilly in some parts of the country, so a fun soup + chips + beer might be your tickets for next weekend. ...
aka your new favorite meat aka IT'S ALMOST CINCO DE MAYO!
I have a few other new things on deck for you this holiday (deck = what Beck calls herself these days), but this is probably my favorite new Mexican-inspired dish this year. Mainly for the ease + big flavors it creates. Beer, tomato sauce, and tons of spices make the best drippings, and we toss them with the beef at the end once we shred it.
I also go against my own rule of SLOW COOKER MUST ONLY INCLUDE SLOW COOKER and sear this to almost burnt in a cast iron skillet. It's not always necessary, but for this application I do think it adds some great crusty bits to the finished dish.
Do you Cinco? I honestly can't tell you what we've done the last few years besides make fun new Mexican recipes for the blog or for parties. Going out for the holiday, if you can even call it that, feels exhausting just to plan, but staying in with an entire Crock Pot of beef and case of Corona? Satisfying. I didn't photograph this beef as any one dish intentionally. I made it for a family gathering a few weeks ago and served it with rice, beans, and tortillas with all of the toppings you could possibly think of. Some people made rice bowls, some people made salads or tacos, but the point of this is that the beef was GONE. The only thing on the spread that was totally eaten by the end of the meal was this, which is saying something because we tend to make about a thousand times what we usually need for family gatherings, and none of us eat much red meat.
This beef, though, we eat.
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