Happy Valentine’s Day to you! I’m sending you lots of love today. And meal ideas. ❤

Meal #1: Pizza Popover – so this is an oldie but a goodie. My grandma used to make this for my brother and I and it was one of my absolute favorite meals. Well over a year ago, I converted this to a paleo (or primal with the addition of cheese) recipe, but we haven’t enjoyed it over here in a very long time. On this particular night, I didn’t want to mess with making vegetable side dishes, so I added a bunch of veggies to the meat sauce portion of this dish. I made my part of the casserole without cheese and added pepperoni for extra pizza goodness. Man, it was good. We all loved it so much that I took this to another family one night and I also fixed it for extended family another night. So if you asked me what we ate this week, the answer is just Pizza Popover! If you are missing pizza or want a family friendly/crowd pleasing meal, give this a try. I promise, it’s delicious even without the cheese. And oh yes, I did serve a very simple salad of mixed greens on the side.

Meal #2: Shake and Bake Chicken Nuggets, salad, roasted potatoes (I made yukon gold potatoes, but followed the same method as in the recipe for sweet potato fries), grapes and buffalo sauce (mayonnaise + Frank’s Original Hot Sauce). We had extra kids for dinner this night, which is why I kept the veggie/fruit portion of the meal pretty simple and kid-friendly. They ate every bit.

Meal #3: I tried a new recipe in the Instant Pot this week: Buffalo Chicken. It’s super simple and you can find the recipe here. I am a spicy food wimp and I still loved this. I will admit that I wanted a big bowl of ice cream afterward. I tempered the heat with sliced avocado, ranch dressing (in my book) and a big helping of roasted sweet potatoes (leftover from earlier in the week – I make a huge batch of these on the weekend and usually just eat them for breakfast with my eggs.) I fried up a plantain, served with a variety of raw veggies on the side. 

Meal #4: Chicken Pot Pie experiment. As I was making all that Pizza Popover this week, I got the idea that the popover batter would be a easy topping for chicken pot pie if someone didn’t have the time, energy or ingredients to make the pie crust. It worked ok. The crust came out a little soggy, whereas it’s really crisp on the pizza popover. It still tasted good, just wasn’t perfect. I think I need to make a few tweaks before I can post this as a recipe. You can find my original Chicken Pot Pie Recipe here. If you don’t feel like making the crust, just add more broth and eat this as soup. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. 

Meals 5, 6 and 7: We had Pizza Popover for a second time and leftovers for the other nights. I always forget to photograph my leftover meals. Usually, I don’t eat the leftovers myself, but my family does. I just come up with something simple for myself. Last night, for example, I ate lunch meat and sliced cucumbers. This is not a meal I recommend! But I was tired and didn’t have much of an appetite so it was the best I could do.

I have been making a version of this Asian Chopped Salad for lunch a lot lately and just topping it with a salmon filet, quickly cooked in a skillet. This is a much better alternative to my lunch meat and cucumber meal! We are having leftovers yet again tonight, so I’ll be making this for myself. If you can find them, wild caught salmon filets sold in individually portioned 4 oz. packages are a great emergency food to keep in your freezer. From frozen to done, it takes under 10 minutes. Canned tuna or salmon would also be a good option.

That’s it for this week! I hope you have a great week and eat lots of amazing, healthy foods!