Another week of fire recipes — we ate well. Having a food processor really sped things up for us, and this was the first week where we really understood its value. Mincing garlic and shredding a whole head cabbage was just dramatically faster - though we had a very basic, barebones food processor that barely cost $20 and didn’t always do what we wanted.

1. Cajun Cabbage and Noodles, 2x (Budget Bytes). This is actually quite incredible, and topping it with some jalapeno Tabasco makes it a truly top-tier recipe. We used the HEB bulk Cajun spice blend in place of making our own, which was perfectly fine. This is where the food processor made the biggest difference — rather than shred the whole head, we chopped it up and used our food processor. Unfortunately, we ended up with cabbage that was less shredded and more chopped.

2. Cilantro Lime Chicken, 3x (Budget Bytes). This isn’t the first time we’ve made this, though I did mess things up a bit by using too high heat - the outside got nicely charred, but the inside of the chicken was still a bit undercooked. I had to compensate by overcooking the chicken a bit - next time I’ll just be patient and cook on medium heat for longer. Adding in the lime wedges and cilantro into the food storage container was great - more flavor for later when reheating. This recipe is an all-time favorite. It’s crazy to me that I can easily cook food that tastes this good. Perhaps 3x was a bit too much for two people.

3. Warm Brussels Sprouts and Pear Salad, 4x (Budget Bytes). A solid salad overall. Cooking the brussels on the stove, however, isn’t the way to go - some of the sprouts weren’t cooked evenly throughout. Better to just bake them, or steam them with some water in the pan. The dijon vinaigrette was absolutely wonderful.