cook: weekend cooking for weeknight dinners

After my decadent Sunday lunch of fried Asian appetizers, I cooked for the work week. Saturday supper the night before were BLTs--my farewell to summer.                                

I had just cooked lumpia and crab rangoon for lunch, and the afternoon got strangely hot and muggy after a windy overcast morning. Sweating, I marinated flap steak in lemon zest, lemon juice, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, Maggi sauce, chipotle powder, cumin powder, onion and garlic powders, and two cloves of crushed garlic. I just went with what flavors I thought would taste good together. Next I sliced and sliced and sliced red bell peppers, Anaheim peppers, jalapeno peppers, red and yellow onions.

 

Rice and beans too for the week. I forgot to presoak the pinto beans and just boiled them for 90 minutes and then sprinkled salt on to them before boiling them again for another hour. Before frying the beans and boiling and steaming the rice, I diced onions and both red and green jalapeno peppers and a couple scallions--some of which I added to the beans and pork lard and the rest to the rice.

 

I set out spices and chicken broth along with basmati rice before I sautéed the rice, diced onions and peppers in olive oil and added a packet of Sazon con azafran, a bit of Mojo seasoning, and turmeric.

I then added the chicken broth to the sautéed rice and started sautéing the beans in pork lard.

I split open an avocado: success! It was still green for my guacamole.

 

Rice was fluffed. Time to fry the marinated flap steak.

 

When the steak was fried, I put it on a board to rest and sprinkled cilantro atop and set out the other ingredients to make fajitas.

Next the peppers. Lots and lots of peppers and onion, which took twice as long as the steak to cook and tenderize.

Whew. I was sweaty from slaving in the kitchen and was too tired to even take a pic of my fajita dinner. I was so pooped that Patrick even washed the dishes. And Monday after swimming, of course, I was not gonna stand over a hot stove. I stopped at the Japanese supermarket and bought toro and salmon and cucumber rolls to eat with my leftover crab rangoon. Patrick baked chocolate chip cookies, which became dessert.                     

And I'm still pooped. It's either exercise and lazy dinner or meal planning, recipe finding, grocery shopping, chopping and prepping and finally cooking.  I love cooking I really do, but I love running and swimming too. Cooking a nutritious and delicious meal so often quiets my noise, but this school year I need a break. Thank goodness for bananas and decaf Americanos for breakfast, meal delivery of salad lunches, and LEFTOVERS or takeout for dinner. First world luxury to not have to cook Monday through Friday.