Happy Wednesday! I’m coming at you with a change of plans for this week. For one, it’s my bestie’s birthday today. We’ve been friends since our freshman year in college, we were roommates in our 20s, and she was my maid of honor at my wedding. Together, we’ve done a lot of living! We have a bday dinner tonight at one of the best Tex Mex places in Htown! Here are some photos of us over the years. She and I have lived some high highs together – and some low lows.
To be friends all these years later – nearly 14 years later is a true blessing!
Life lately
And – what about that change of plans for this week? Well, I’m headed to Dallas tomorrow morning for work. I’ve been working on a fun little project, and I’m going to get to go see it to fruition later this week. It’s been a hot second since I’ve traveled for work, so that was a fun project yesterday trying to get everything scheduled again. I’ll be back in Htown Friday evening just in time for the weekend. We are having two of our neighbors over for dinner on Saturday, so I need to figure out what to make. I’m leaning toward lasagna because it’s going to be chilly, but stay tuned.
I’m also mentally preparing myself for the month of March. Sometimes, when the to-do list is so long, it can be hard to focus on those one offs that are easy to accomplish. I had to remind myself what that looked like this week. I wrote out list on a post-it and got to work accomplishing the items that I could do easily. Most of March – and April is going to be like that. We’ve got some fun personal items on the agenda – and some business items on the agenda. It’s going to be a wild ride!
Hello Fresh recipe on repeat
Because I’m anticipating some very busy days ahead, I’m having to simplify my evening routine when I can. Remember way back last year – I mentioned I was trying some Hello Fresh meals? I was craving some change in my dinners, and I figured this would be a good way to gain some new inspiration. So, Aaron and I tried a couple weeks of meals, and I didn’t find one I disliked. Now, if you aren’t familiar, you can go in and pick your meals for the week. They have the option to choose for a family of two or four, and you can choose from vegetarian options and meat options. If you want something quick, they have one-pan meals to choose from. You also have the ability to pick which day your meals arrived, and I always tried to choose Sunday or Monday so I could start my week off with some new meals.
One Pan Pineapple Pork Tacos
Many of the meals that I chose are now inspiration for some new types of dishes for our dinner moving forward. You all know I’m about simplifying where possible, so I knew I wanted to try a one-pan meal. I don’t have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen most evenings during the week, and I don’t like to have a ton of cleanup. So, these one-pan options were calling my name. We started with the one-pan pineapple salsa pork tacos.
They send you the recipe card and all the ingredients packed in a bag. I found the produce to be fresh in most cases. And, you just get to work. This kit came with 1 pound of pork, pineapple, sour cream, some chipotle sauce, spices, cilantro, an onion, a bell pepper, tortillas and a lime. The only ingredients I really needed on hand was salt and pepper.
Everything comes packed in sizes measured just for that recipe.
In this recipe, which was truly one pan, I got to work browning my pork, sautéing my onions and peppers and adding in my spices. Then, all I had to do was assemble my tacos.
They were truly finished in less than thirty minutes, and they were really good.
Final Thoughts
The thing I liked about this particular Hello Fresh meal was that it made me use ingredients outside of my norm. When I do tacos, they are always your regular ground beef tacos. But, I have actually made these pineapple pork tacos again, and it’s been a nice, new dinner to add into the rotation!
Now, I sometimes swap with low carb or whole wheat tortillas, and use some fresh pico de Gallo, but those are really the only switches I’ve made. I loved that I was able to make a complete meal without having to set one foot in the grocery store.
