Let’s face it, we are all busy and tired Monday through Friday, and the last thing we want to do after working all day is come home and cook dinner.
That is why quick, cheap, and easy meals are a huge hit in our house. And if they are low-calorie, that’s even better.
I’m not even going to pretend that I do the cooking in our house — that’s all Justin, and I am 100 percent OK with that because he is amazing at creating his own recipes and preparing beautiful meals nearly every night of the week.
However, from time to time, I like to pour myself a glass of wine (or two), roll up my sleeves, and see what I can come up with at the stove.
This week I wanted to experiment with some items from Trader Joe’s. I picked up a package of their sun-dried tomato chicken sausage and a bag of their frozen fire roasted bell peppers and onions. The best part was the chicken sausage is fully cooked, so the chance of me giving us food poisoning was cut from probable to minimal.
This was possibly one of the easiest and most delicious meals I have ever prepared by myself. Well, I say by myself but in reality, Justin was standing over my shoulder.
And, it was cheap. I spent less than $20 at Trader Joe’s on the sausage, peppers and onions, salad mix, dressing, two NC craft beers, and a chocolate bar.
I started by heating oil in a large skillet, then I added the thawed peppers and onions and turned the heat down to medium.
Once they were heated through (about 7 minutes), I added the slices of chicken sausage to the pan and gave the mixture a good stir to evenly combine the peppers and onions with the sausage.
I let that cook on the stove for another 7 minutes or so while I plated a handful of mixed greens with a light pour of Trader Joe’s red wine and olive oil vinaigrette.
I then laid a bed of cooked rice on our plates next to the greens and plopped a spoonful of the sausage and peppers mixture on top of the rice.
There you have it — roughly 20 minutes after starting we had dinner on the table. And because I didn’t spend all evening cooking, we were able to eat outside at our patio table and enjoy what was left of the beautiful Spring day.
Too bad Trader Joe’s doesn’t have the fire roasted peppers and onions anymore, at least not in Chicago. Maybe we can start a petition? I can’t find anything else like this.
Oh no! I saw it in our TJ’s in Charlotte the last time I was in there (a couple weeks ago). Maybe yours is just out of stock and they will get it in again? I love that stuff so much!