Monday
Curried Rice & Lentils
CrockPot Brussels Sprouts

CrockPot Brussels Sprouts: These are made with a Dijon/butter sauce and cooked in a CrockPot for a few hours. I liked this dish, but I didn’t love it — I’ll stick to my regular oven-roasted method in the future.

Curried Rice and Lentils: This dish was very, very good. Definitely will make this again. Changes and Notes: 1) Used homemade chicken stock instead of vegetable stock; 2) Didn’t have sunflower seeds; 3) Served the dish with Greek yogurt (of course!).

Tuesday
CrockPot Salsa Chicken & Black Bean Soup

Changes and Notes: 1) Used canned black beans instead of dry; 2) Didn’t add sour cream at the end of cooking (served individual portions with Greek yogurt instead); 3) Did not blend the soup as recommended (I prefer it chunky); 4) Served with brown rice.

Wednesday
Leftovers

Thursday
CrockPot Applesauce Chicken

Changes and Notes: 1) Cooked this on low for 5.5 hours (5-7 hours was recommended) since my chicken was already thawed; 2) Used a handful of frozen chopped onion instead of onion powder; 3) Served with brown rice and Greek yogurt.

Friday
Creamy Baked Salmon Dijon
CrockPot Risotto

CrockPot Risotto – Changes and Notes: 1) Used onion powder instead of dry onion flakes; 2) This recipe makes a lot more than expected. We ate some and I put the rest in the freezer.

Creamy Baked Salmon Dijon – Changes and Notes: 1) Used 1 lb of fresh salmon (purchased at a grocery store seafood counter after work); 2) Replaced sour cream with Greek yogurt; 3) Used Gourmet Garden dill instead of dry dill; 4) Didn’t have scallions so I left those out; 5) Put aluminum foil on the baking sheet for easy clean-up. Very, very good. I really liked the sauce.

Saturday
Went out to eat

Sunday
Herb-Roasted Whole Chicken
Lemony Quinoa

Lemony Quinoa – I had this at a friend’s dinner party a few weeks ago and really loved it. Mine didn’t turn out exactly the same as hers, but it was decent. Changes and Notes: 1) I added too much red onion, which overpowered the flavors of the rest of the dish. I would definitely be more careful with that next time; 2) Used chili powder instead of cayenne pepper; 3) Used bottled freeze-dried parsley instead of fresh; 4) My friend toasted her pine nuts in garlic-infused olive oil while I used coconut oil — I’m not sure if that made a big difference, but it’s possible.

Herb-Roasted Whole Chicken – Changes and Notes: 1) I forgot to pat the chicken dry before rubbing on the oil and spices, but it turned out fine. Delicious, actually. The chicken was super-moist and flavorful. I will definitely be using this method again.

I’m including a shortened version of the recipe below. The original version was very wordy and I knew if I made it in the future, I’d just want the details without the commentary.

Herb-Roasted Whole Chicken

3-4 lb whole chicken
Something to stuff inside the chicken (apple, onion, lemon, garlic cloves, carrot, etc.)
1-2 tablespoons chopped herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme)
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Herbs: If using fresh, pick the herbs from their stems and chop (I used dry herbs so I just sprinkled them in). Toss herbs into a bowl and add salt and pepper. Add olive oil and stir.

Fill chicken cavity. I used an onion (chopped into 4 sections), a lemon (sliced in half), and 6 peeled garlic cloves.

Pat the whole chicken dry with a paper towel. This will help to insure a nice crust on your chicken once it’s finished.

Rub the chicken down with the oil-herb-salt-pepper mix (all sides).

Cook the chicken for 45-60 minutes, until golden brown and the outside has developed a delicious crust.

Once chicken has roasted, let it rest for 10-15 minutes to prevent dryness before slicing.

Note: You can cook multiple chickens at once using this method (one chicken feeds 3-4 people).