Things in Bowls Vol. 1

If you follow me over on Instagram, you may already know a little about Things in Bowls. If not, I'll give you a brief summary.

Those who have ever eaten with me probably know that I prefer to eat out of bowls, with a spoon. I also like quick meals that produce minimal dishes. As such, I'd say 80% of what I make for dinner are meals where everything (carbs, protein, fats, fruits/vegetables) is all combined in one bowl. My brother-in-law, who eats dinner with us often, pointed this out and decided that I needed a blog entitled "Things in Bowls" where I write about all of the foods we eat out of bowls 🙂

So, here it is. Volume 1 of Things in Bowls, where I'll share about all of the meals we've eaten recently out of bowls. My hope is that it gives you some new ideas and shows you that putting balanced meals on the table doesn't have to be a major production.

Here's what we've been enjoying lately! The recipes are linked to the title of each and I detail any modifications I made in the description.

Vegetable Stir-Fry with Peanut Sauce

This was a new recipe to us and we enjoyed it! We both agreed that we will double the peanut sauce next time. It was enough to cover the vegetables but we prefer if there's a little extra to flavor the rice. We also used carrots instead of sweet potato!

Summer Chipotle Chicken Cobb Salad with Cilantro Vinaigrette

Oh man. This was fantastic. It ended up creating a lot of dishes, so I think I'll chop the vegetables and make the vinaigrette ahead of time when we make this again. We had crackers on the side for carbs since the salad itself is lacking.

Vegetable Tikka Masala

We love Indian food around here. I try to plan meatless meals most days of the week to keep our grocery budget in check so this was a nice alternative to chicken tikka masala. My husband did all of the chopping and was very proud of that slice of cauliflower you see on top. He carefully placed it there so it could be admired in the photo 🙂 I bought plain Greek yogurt instead of the suggested coconut milk yogurt but forgot to add it to the sauce. It was still good 🙂 I also keep this ginger paste around instead of peeling and mincing fresh ginger every time.

Mediterranean Pasta Salad

This is perfect for Monday nights when I tend to get home a little later. I either make it on Sunday or over my lunch break so we can just pull it out of the fridge at dinner time. I left out the red onion, used whole wheat pasta, and just eyeballed the amounts of sun-dried tomatoes, olives, artichoke hearts, and feta. We had it with salad on the side at dinner and fruit the next day with the leftovers at lunch.

Roasted Vegetables + Sausage

No recipe for this one, which is one of the reasons we love it! I put sliced Italian chicken sausage (from Aldi) and diced potatoes on one cookie sheet and chopped carrots, bell pepper, and broccoli on another cookie sheet. Toss all the vegetables with a little oil, salt, and pepper and roast in the oven at 425 degrees for 20 minutes. I usually put the sausage and potatoes in while I chop the other veggies so they get an extra 5-10 minutes (25-30 minutes total).

Slow Cooker Chicken Curry

This is probably the easiest curry you'll ever make. I put this together over lunch in my Instant Pot and used the high slow cooker setting for 5 hours. I've also set it to low in a slow cooker for 8-9 hours and that worked great too. Sadly, I forgot to buy frozen peas this time but I usually add them! I don't add the crushed red pepper because I'm a wimp when it comes to spicy food 🙂