Deja Food: Grocery List & Recipes for Two Chorizo Dinners

The goal of this "deja food" is to save time by preparing the meat once then using it twice, and to save money by ensuring that the food you buy is used.  

Also, the second dinner is a one dish meal...YAASSS! 

On the Menu:
Chorizo Burgers
Deconstructed Stuffed Bell Peppers

I have to say, I'm not proud of calling one of these dinners "deconstructed", it is a little too hipster for me, seriously I might be one morning away from making avocado toast.  In my defense, this dinner did evolve from trying to make the difficult-to-eat-but-delicious stuffed bell pepper easier to eat (dare I call my variation the stuff-able bell pepper?).  If you have a less pretentious sounding name, throw it at me, I'd love to hear it! 

For now, I guess I'll call it deconstructed.    
    
Grocery List:

• 2 pounds of hamburger 
• 1 package of bacon
• 1 package of chorizo
• 1 cup of white rice
• 2 avocados 
• 1 bell pepper
• parmesan and romano cheese blend
• caldo de tomate (tomato bouillon)
• 1 can of tomato paste (optional - see bell pepper recipe notes below)
• 1 sweet potato or yukon potato

Chorizo Burgers

Tons of protein and flavor, these burgers are delish!    

What you need:

• 2 pounds of hamburger
• 1 package of chorizo
• 1 package of bacon
• 1 potato
• avocado

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the chorizo and hamburger and form into patties.  

Place in a 13x9 pan and bake approximately 20 minutes.  Place bacon in a foil lined 13x9 pan and bake until crispy.

For the yukon potato version:
Wash the potato, poke several times with a fork and microwave for 1 minute at a time until it feels tender when poked with fork.  Enough poking. 

Cut potato into 1/2 inch slices, melt 1 teaspoon of butter in a skillet and cook each potato slice on each side until brown.  Give it a quick sprinkle of salt.  

 

For the sweet potato version:
Peel and thinly slice the sweet potato.  Place on foil covered baking sheet, sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake at 405 for ~20 minutes or until slices are slightly crispy. 

 

For the burgers stack the potato, burger, bacon and avocado.

Eat like you mean it. 

 
Deconstructed Bell Peppers
Recipe Note:
Typically the "stuff" in the bell peppers is a mix of tomato paste, rice and hamburger meat.  D isn't a huge fan of tomatoes so I leave out the paste and use my mexican rice recipe for the flavor.  

If you're into tomatoes or like a dish that is a little saucy, and don't I love a saucy dish, add a small can of tomato paste at step 3.  

You can totally use leftover plain or mexican rice for this,  I used leftover mexican rice that had some corn in it.  If you're using leftover rice start at step 2.

1)  For the rice:

• 1 cup of rice
• 1 teaspoon butter or olive oil 
• tomato bouillon
• 6qt (big!) pot with lid

Heat 1 teaspoon of butter or olive oil in a quart pan on medium heat, add one cup of rice and stir until brown (5-7 minutes), don't skip this step, it makes the rice soft & fluffy!  Add roughly two teaspoons of caldo de tomate and 1 & 1/2 cups of water, bring to boil.  Once mixture is boiling, stir, reduce the heat to low, cover and allow rice to cook for twenty minutes. 
 
2) Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the big pot on medium heat.  Chop the bell pepper, add it to the pot and cook for about 2 minutes while stirring.  Add your rice. 

If it is leftover rice, cook for about 5 minutes or until it is warm and looks fluffy again.    

3) Add the chorizo burgers and use a whisk or your favorite blunt object to smash them. 

At this point, you've been working those muscles, seems like a good opportunity for a protein break, this is normally where I have a peanut butter spoon.

Cook until the meat is hot, we like it a little crispy.

Add a sprinkle of cheese to the top and enjoy!

Hopefully these recipes add a few more tricks up your sleeve of easy dinners, 
D & H