Red Peas & Rice, Sheet Pan BBQ Chicken & Caesar Smash Tacos, Italian Sausage & Veg Soup, Frizzled Onion Dip & More!

We’ve got a lot of (healthy-ish) comfort foods in this round up, with amazing red beans and rice (made with red clay peas and brown rice), sheet pan chicken tacos, soup with Italian sausage, lots of veggies and pesto pasta, herby goat chops and frizzled scallion (or spring onion) dip.

We were also on a bit of a Caesar salad kick and that for made a really good side for the red beans and some fun chicken Caesar smash tacos!

Red Peas & Rice with Caesar Salad

What is it about red beans and rice? This was such a good meal and got even better in the fridge throughout the week. Every time I make it, I ask myself why I don’t make it more often.

I started with a fresh batch of pork bone broth in the Instant Pot. I typically just do bones, water, sea salt and a splash of apple cider vinegar to make it super versatile (and also to be able to add to my dog’s food). You can cook the bones for a long time, but you don’t want to cook celery or parsley too long because it can make the broth really bitter. (If you do want to add vegetables, only add celery or parsley for the last 45 minutes or so of cooking).

I love using Marsh Hen Mill’s red clay peas here instead of traditional large kidney beans. They’re like a mix between black eyed peas and red beans and get perfectly soft and creamy like red beans. I soaked those for 24 hours with a little vinegar, changing the water once and then added kombu seaweed to the Instant Pot when cooking. Both the soaking and the kombu help break down raffinose, a sugar that causes gas.

Everything else about the red beans was pretty traditional! I used some of our smoked pork hocks and sautéed andouille, so in addition to the plain pork broth as a base, it got a lot of lovely umami flavor.

It wasn’t quite pepper season yet and I didn’t have any peppers frozen, so I just used onions, celery and garlic, along with fresh oregano and thyme and the usual other cajun seasonings like paprika, black and red pepper and garlic and onion powders.

We’ve been on a big caesar kick and that started with Romaine season, but then I realized that Little Gem, Green Butter and Muir Summer Crisp lettuces make arguably even better Caesar salads? I made homemade Caesar dressing with our eggs, avocado oil, garlic, anchovy paste, Worcestershire sauce, dijon mustard, lemon juice, black pepper and finished with lots of grated parmesan.

I also made some toasted croutons/breadcrumbs with a leftover baguette! And we had the beans with Two Brooks’ red and brown rice medley this time and something about the extra nuttiness and chew was just right. We topped the beans with fresh parsley and green onions and feasted — it was so good!

Sheet Pan Korean BBQ Chicken Tacos

We made a lot of ground chicken from some of the roosters we hatched out last year, but I still do have some leg quarters in my freezer from before we started grinding a lot of the meat.

Leg meat from egg laying breeds (versus Cornish Cross broilers) is much darker, more intensely flavored and it can be tougher unless slow cooked. I can’t say I love to eat it as just stewed chicken or as a slow-cooked thigh falling off the bone.

But it’s very good in these pressed sheet pan tacos! I cooked the leg quarters in the Instant Pot for an hour with Korean barbecue sauce, garlic and onion powders and smoked paprika, then let them cool enough to handle and pull the meat off the bones.

Then I weighed the total amount of meat, figured out a good number of ounces per taco to be able to count of the tortillas before I started filling them and cook them on the stove first (from frozen).

It ended up being enough for nine 4-ounce tacos, which all fit on one big sheet pan. I filled them with chicken, added more Korean barbecue sauce and a mix of gouda and white cheddar cheeses. I put another (smaller) sheet pan on top and baked them in the oven for 15 minutes or so and then took that extra sheet tray off and flipped them and baked for another 10 minutes or so, until the cheese with melted and crispy on the edges and the tortillas were nice and toasted.

We had them with some roasted zucchini and squash tossed with minced garlic, oregano and thyme. And while they aren’t as obvious of a meal prep food as say soup or pasta or beans, they were great reheated in the toaster oven throughout the week!

Italian Sausage & Veggie Soup with Pesto Pasta

Sometimes if I’m craving pasta but don’t want to totally fill up on carbs, soup is the answer!

You can add lots of protein, veggies and bone broth and the pasta on top can be a way smaller portion than if you made pasta as the main dish.

That was my goal here. I started with browning some or our Italian pork sausage, mixed with a pack of our homemade primal ground chicken. The soup base had onions, leeks, celery, kale stems and carrots and then I added sun dried tomatoes, a can of tomatoes and chicken bone broth.

I let them simmer until the carrots were soft and everything melded together and then added some arrowroot to thicken it and then added the kale leaves. The first night we had it as a side with caesar smash tacos (below) and then the next day I made the pasta (Il Supremo’s gnocchi sardi) with the last container of 2025 basil pesto from my freezer and topped it with lots of grated parmesan.

Chicken Caesar Smash Tacos

Since we were on a Caesar kick and have plenty of ground chicken in the freezer, I had high hopes for these.

And don’t get me wrong, they were tasty, but the egg roll smash tacos I shared a few weeks ago were just better and it left me kind of wanting those flavors instead.

For the chicken mix, I did all the usual Caesar suspects — parmesan, dijon, anchovy paste, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice and zest, plus garlic, red onions and parsley.

I made another round of caesar dressing and we had a Caesar salad mix on top as part of the taco filling, with crispy scallions to finish it off. Again, they were super good, but just not as good as the egg roll smash tacos or even some jalapeño cheddar smash tacos I’ve made since and will share soon.

Herby Goat Chops with Roasted Potatoes & Salad

You can never go wrong with goat chops, in my opinion!

I found a pack of sirloin chops and a pack of shoulder chops with loose vacuum seals and wasn’t mad about pulling them for us.

Goat goes really well with bright flavors like garlic, lemon and rosemary and that’s what I primarily season goat chops with.

We had some leftover roasted potatoes and fennel, so we had the chops with those, a salad with greens, pistachios, goat feta, crispy jalepenos and a honey mustard vinaigrette with R2 Positive Culture’s fermented mustard, along with some of my herby almond cashew dip that I make almost weekly on the side. Simple, but so good!

Frizzled Scallion (Or Spring Onion) Dip

I made this a few weeks ago for some farm guests with scallions and even though scallions are now pretty much done for the season, I just made it again with spring onion tops and it was just as good!

I browned a bunch of scallions in a skillet on high heat, then let them cool and chopped them. I also reserved some of the scallions to slice fresh, along with some fresh chives, garlic and onion powders, lemon zest and lemon juice.

The first time I just made with sour cream, mayonnaise and a little yogurt and the second time I had both sour cream and cream cheese, so used less mayo. It was really good with potato chips, but also with toasted bread and veggies like radishes, cucumbers, carrots and bell peppers!