Weeknight Dinner - Baked Salmon with Pesto

Wow. I can't believe that March is almost over. It has been one busy month. We have had an increase in our weekly mileage for marathon training (just ran 22 miles on Saturday) and Wallace family events the past few weekends.  FFDN has been put on hold for now because we have been using Friday nights as trial runs for pre-race carbo loading dinners to see what will work best to fuel our long runs. So far spaghetti with my slow cooker bolognese sauce and garlic bread is the winning combo.

I got a new kitchen gadget this past weekend that I have been itching to try and have been wanting for awhile.  The main reason I wanted it was for chopping up veggies when I make large batches of lumpia.

A food processor?!

As you can see Brian is just as excited as I am about the new gadget, maybe even more so. I think he's just happy that he doesn't have to really help with the chopping anymore.  Don't get too excited mister. That food processor can't help me wrap the lumpia =).  It isn't a fancy Cuisinart or Kitchen Aid food processor, but it still gets the job done. 

I have plans to make a big batch of lumpia this weekend for Easter so I decided to just bite the bullet and buy it this past weekend.  I wanted to test it out before making the lumpia so I decided to make pesto for dinner this week.  I made pesto in the blender before and it was fine but it didn't come out as smooth as I would have liked. It still had larger pieces of walnuts in it and the blender motor would start smoking.  That was not the case with the food processor! 

Check out that delicious pesto!

For dinner tonight salmon was the featured vehicle for that pesto. I made Foil Baked Salmon with Basil Pesto from Kalyn's Kitchen which she adapted from Mark Bittman's Quick and Easy Recipes from the New York Times. The pesto recipe came from this Cooking Light recipe (which I highly recommend).

Just before getting wrapped in foil and put in the oven.

Time to eat up!

This recipe was really good. The pesto and salmon worked really well together. Pesto has such a good flavor profile and is healthy and adds a flavorful punch to any dish.  I would definitely make this again and the food processor makes it even easier to have this as a weeknight dinner. 

This weekend has some good eats awaiting me. I can't wait! Just have to get my 18 miler done first (in my new shoes!).

Weeknight Dinner - Chicken Tamale Casserole

I don't have the luxury of time to whip up a great meal after work, especially during marathon training, so I'm always on the lookout for quick and healthy recipes. My go to resource for quick and healthy recipes is Cooking Light. They usually have healthy versions of classic favorites.

Crock pot roasted chicken is pretty much a weekly staple at our household. Season the chicken and place it in the crock pot on low for 8 hours as you leave for work. When you get back your chicken is ready for dinner. Pair it with a salad, veggie, and starch and you have a well balanced meal.

The only thing about cooking a whole chicken for two people is there is a lot of chicken left over. We even take the chicken for lunch the next day and still have plenty of leftovers. I have made plenty of different kinds of soup with the leftover chicken but this week I wanted to try something new. So I turned to my trusty stand by www.cookinglight.com.

Chicken Tamale Casserole

This was pretty good. I followed the recipe exactly. I wouldn't really recommend any changes except maybe add a little more enchilada sauce. We ate this with a side salad and a quarter of an avocado.  It was very filling and definitely hit the spot after our swim workout.

We had to take a day off from running today. We were scheduled to run 5 but our legs are dead tired from lifting legs with our trainer on Tuesday and running a combined 14 miles on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Swimming is such a good workout but I definitely am an inefficient swimmer. I expend way too much energy turning my head to take a breath which makes me out of breath easily. After the swim we sat in the hot tub for a little bit to soak our muscles. Hopefully our legs will be ready to rock for our next long run, 14 miles - gotta love a cut back week. weeknight