Accepting suggestions for a few

[Sueven]

I am going to go to the grocery store in maybe an hour, where I will grab ingredients to make some large meat-based dish that I can eat for a few days. I'm not feeling overly creative or inspired, so I'm probably going to make another go at either carnitas or beef stew. However, I figured that maybe some of you would want to control the direction of my diet, so:

What should I cook?

Notes: Grocery store is standard and I'm not eager to make the trek out to a nicer one. This limits us to pork, beef, chicken, and a limited selection of lamb cuts. As far as seafood goes, I can consistently get decent salmon, shrimp, and crab, and not much else.

Also, I don't want to roast a whole chicken.

[Fash]

Ditali with Peas. This stuff gets better as leftovers, even.

It's just shells (or ditali, or ditalini), peas, and onions... I forget how to spell the brand name (something like Leisure) but they are very young peas, and the juice in the can is also an ingredient.

Sautee the onions in oil till translucent, and dump in the peas and juice (2-3 cans per lb of pasta)... separately cook the pasta, and then combine and simmer. The longer it cooks down the better...

You can add lots of parmesan cheese to it on your plate, it makes it so much better.

As leftovers, fry it up with a little oil..

oh... you said a meat dish. crap, i already wrote all this. lol. it would probably be awesome with some sort of sausage added.

[Sueven]

Good idea but no meat!

I am going to make enchiladas with pork based vaguely on a combination of my carnitas recipe and Zamtuk's enchiladas.

[Knarlz]

Personally I have a hankering for some baby back ribs. But alas. It's 25 deg out and the Q is covered in 6 inches of snow.
A big pot of chille sounds ok though.

[Canelek]

I made meatballs and carnitas over the weekend. The combination will have me eating tasty leftovers for over a week.

[Zamtuk]

Good idea but no meat!

I am going to make enchiladas with pork based vaguely on a combination of my carnitas recipe and Zamtuk's enchiladas.

Yeah, pork does work quite nicely, but you would need to prepare it like you usually do, which is more time than I care to put in it. The one time I had it with pork was amazing though!

On a side note, it's about time this forum saw some heavy action.

[Zamtuk]

Oh yeah, my input.

Zamtuk's Chicken Bake

Quick, easy, leftover friendly.

Ingredients

Either:
(a) 10 boneless breasts (10 oz each)
(b) 1 whole chicken or 2 of the smaller ones

1lb dry white rice
Family size box of stove-top stuffing
4 large jars of chicken gravy
Pepper
Salt
Chicken Base/Stock

Preheat oven to 350.

Boil the chicken in the chicken base and salt. If you have a cool way to boil the whole chicken, by all means go for it. After finished, let it cool enough (not too much) to dice up (if boneless) or pick apart (if whole chicken).

While this is being done, also a good time to boil the rice. I usually use Uncle Ben's quick rice pouches. They are too convenient and easy to use, if you haven't checked it out yet. And boil some appropriate amount of water for the stuffing. Something I like to do, and I recommend it, but it isn't necessary is to put the rice in a bowl and mix with a lot of pepper, minimal salt, and if you are feeling a bit frisky, some fresh rosemary would make a nice touch. Set aside.

After all ingredients are cooked off, get a deep cake pan. I tend to use 9X9, but the one i use is pretty deep so I can double layer (more on that later).

Layer 1/2 the rice across the bottom. Place 1/2 the chicken on top of the rice. Pour 1.5 cans of the gravy evenly over all the pan. Then put on 1/2 the stuffing and put the remaining 1/2 can of gravy over the stuffing. Repeat steps. Put in oven for about 15 minutes (keep in mind that aside from the gravy all the ingredients should still be pretty hot). When done, the top layer of stuffing should be a bit crisp, but not burnt and have the gravy cooked right into it.

I like a lot more gravy and pepper than most people I would guess, so I tend to over do it. There is also no real right way to do this, but I like to put the gravy over the chicken and rice so it doesn't dry up. Having some extra gravy on the side is also a plus! You can also make this a lot more homemade if you would like, I use the simple pre-made ingredients for speed.

I double layer it for fun, though if you single layer it, a bigger pan will be necessary, and some slight adjustments on bake time will be beneficial.