Quick Chicken and Vegetable Tacos
Towards the end of the grocery shopping week usually is when you pull out ingredients that may be going bad or reaching for the canned beans and a box of pasta with a frozen bag of mixed veggies. And since for this blog I’m trying to focus on using what you already have, I’m going to do my best to bring you as many “recipes” as possible that are from the last-couple-of-days-before-grocery-shopping as possible. These aren’t meant to be actual recipes, but hopefully, inspiration to create something delicious out of the contents of your refrigerator. This is one of those, even though it isn’t quite the end of the week.
It has been a very busy few days of running back and forth between all my son’s activities, playdates, and parties. And yesterday afternoon, as I was trying to convince Paxton to participate in a chill, quiet activity, he kept asking to go to the park. Ok, I told him 1 hour at the park that is a short 5-minute walk away. And we headed home 2.5 hours later (it turned out a lot of his friends showed up at the park, great for him and some adult conversation for me!).
It was already getting into dinner time while we were still at the park, and luckily, my husband got home right before we left. He got Paxton’s dinner of leftovers ready while we walked home. I was done being a mom for the day, so early dinner and bed for him. One down, two to go.
Before I sat down, because I knew I wasn’t going to get back if I did, I rummaged through the fridge to see what I could toss together for dinner for the parents. There weren’t enough leftovers for both of us so it was either cooking or take-out (which was tempting).
The “Recipe”
Let’s see, a package of boneless skinless chicken breasts, I could slice that up and throw it in a stir fry. A package of small corn tortillas that had a use-by date of 2 days ago, no mold anywhere so I better use that up. Tacos it is!
I also found a half-eaten red bell pepper, an orange bell pepper, and some of the leftover kale salad to top the tacos with.
Moved over to the pantry to decide on seasonings and found a pouch of taco skillet sauce with chipotle and garlic that I thought would pair well with the citrus that was already on the kale.
I heated my large cast iron skillet over medium heat as I thinly sliced the bell peppers and the chicken. I mixed the chicken with a little salt, granulated garlic, and pepper and added some corn starch (to make it a bit crispy) and drizzled in just enough avocado oil to coat all the pieces.
The chicken went into the hot pan and I spread the pieces out so they could more evenly brown. Remember that the chicken won’t brown if you keep moving it. Let the hot pan and time do the work. This is difficult for me as well because it requires some patience, which is hard to find at the end of a long day.
Flip the chicken after the bottom has become a nice golden brown and then added the bell peppers and the sauce. Let the chicken finish cooking through on low heat while you toast the tortillas and melt a little cheese on top.
Add the chicken and pepper mix to the tortillas, top with the kale, squeeze a little lime on top. Dinner is served!
Bonus: Less than 20 minutes from start to finish. And one pan. And Jelani kept commenting how good they were.