Current mood:	curious
Entry tags:	bell peppers, carrots, chicken, chickpeas, corn, low-carb, mushrooms, recipe request, sausage, vegetables

Looking for Ideas
Hola pornistas - I'm hoping someone can help me out with some food porn inspiration.

See, my boyfriend and I generally plan our dinners each week in advance, usually allowing at least one day to clean up leftovers or just cook for ourselves individually. This week, however, we mis-counted and have an extra day with nothing planned, and for the first time in a long time we actually have NO leftovers to go through.... so we'll be stretching it a bit if we can't come up with a good meal for the remaining day.

The worst part is that this week we've sorta been eating on a theme (mushrooms, because my boyfriend has never liked them much but wants to learn to like them, mainly because I love them, so we've been using a bunch of different varieties in as many different kinds of meals as we can to see how he likes them best) so the contents of our kitchen are currently rather single-minded..... I guess this is the drawback to shopping for specific meals most of the time.

To add yet another level of difficulty to this conundrum, we're trying to cut back on our carb and fat intake, so I can't just go to my usual fallbacks of pasta dishes and bread and potato-based meals.

I think that right now we've got some chicken and turkey breast in the freezer (probably something like 1/3 lb of each, leftover from other meals), a bit of Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage (the bulk kind), a bunch of canned tomatoes and tomato paste, a can of chick peas, a can of corn, some frozen veggies like edamame and green peas, almonds and walnuts, various fresh veggies (broccoli, onions both red and yellow, red bell peppers, scallions, carrots, some escarole that I was saving for soup but that I'm willing to use otherwise, three kinds of mushrooms....) and romaine lettuce for salads, eggs, a few kinds of cheese, various dressings and typical pantry fare (pastas, rice, polenta, bouillion, baking ingredients, etc) and a LOT of spices - probably almost anything you could think of thats readily available in most grocery stores plus a few specialty items like galangal root and fancy vinegars. I'd prefer not to have to go to the store for a bunch of crap, but I wouldn't mind stoppng to pick up an item or two on my way home.

Because of the tomatoes, chickpeas, and poultry, I've sorta got my heart set on something meditteranean, indian, or moroccan, especially since everything else we've planned this week has been either very italian or very french-american. I know I could make a pretty basic curry or stew or something similar, but I'm trying to think of something maybe a bit more creative and interesting. I've had some very half-baked notions in my head of a meditteranean pizza using a thinned hummus as a sauce, fresh veggies and grilled chicken, with appropriate spices and maybe some feta, or perhaps samosas filled with chickpeas and chicken rather than potatoes or ground beef/lamb.... not really sure about either of those though.

So, anyone got any creative thoughts for me? Favorite recipes? Ways you think I could make my ideas work? HELP!

Thanks in advance :D