For most of us, weeknight dinners can prove to be pretty tricky. Very often after a long day at work or school you may not have the energy to make a meal. Throw all of the after-school activities on top and it can make everything even more challenging. NYT Cooking has put together a bunch of recipes that you can make quickly and easily that make for great weeknight dinners for you and your family. Check it out!
Source: Easy Weeknight Recipes Recipes – NYT Cooking
Cast Iron Skillet Recipes – Southern Living.
There is nothing quite like cooking in a cast iron skillet. I have three cast iron pans now (4 if I count my grill pan) and use them for literally everything that I can from searing, sauteing, frying, deep frying, roasting, baking, broiling and more. Southern Living has 26 great cast iron skillet recipes for you for everything from breakfast to dinner, appetizers to dessert, so you can see how to cook just about anything you want in your cast iron. Check it out!
Summer Sandwich Recipes | SAVEUR.
I love sandwiches. I think I could eat them for every meal if I had the chance and in the summer sandwiches are perfect for lunch, dinner, picnics, parties, buffets, hanging out outside or just about any time. They take only a little effort, little to no cooking and you can have a great meal without heating up the house. Saveur has put together over 20 great summertime sandwich recipes so you can have great ideas for the summer on any time during the year. Check it out!
Summer Family Dinner Ideas – Best Summer Dinner Recipes.
Easy dinners are great no matter what time of ywear it may be, but having some easy dinners to make are even better in the summer when it is too hot to spend hours in the kitchen or you just want something quick. Delish has 40 easy summer family dinner ideas for you to give you a little bit of everything to try and choose from to make dinnertime easy. Check it out!
Our Best One-Dish Dinners – Bon Appétit.
I love one-dish dinners, especially during the weeknights when getting dinner on the table can sometimes seem hectic as you try to figure out what you can do. When you are able to get your meat and vegetables all in one place and have only one pot to clean up, it is a great night! Bon Appetit has put together 21 of their best one-dish dinners that you can try for any night of the week when you want a great meal with easy clean-up. Check it out!
Our Best Camping Recipes – Bon Appétit.
One of the favorite summertime (or really any time of year) pastimes is to go camping. Just because you are going camping does not mean you cannot eat a great meal along the way. All it takes is bringing the right ingredients, tools (don’t forget your cast iron pan) and a campfire and you can have fantastic meals during your trip. Bon Appetit has put together 25 camping recipes that are perfect for your next outdoor trip. Look them over and see what you can make next time you go camping. Check it out!
50 French Recipes, French Food Recipes | Saveur.
French cooking is considered among the finest and most elegant in the world. If you are celebrating Bastille Day and want to try your hand at some traditional French recipes, Saveur has posted 50 classic French recipes that you can give a try and reach new gastronomic heights. Check it out!
After being busy for weeks it seems that things have finally slowed down a bit where I actually have the time and energy to do some blogging. After writing for 10 hours a day sometimes I just don’t have the energy or will to sit in front of the computer anymore and blog even though I really enjoy it. Hopefully I can have some more time to do some in the coming days and weeks. We’ll have to see what the work schedule brings along. With the craziness behind me for now, I have had some time to cook a few new things lately, including this recipe from Cook’s Country that I made last night for chicken noodle casserole. Granted, this dish combines two ingredients I personally don’t eat myself – cheese and noodles – but Michelle and Sean both love them and I had all of the right ingredients on hand to have a go at the recipe and see what I could do with it. It seemed simple enough to make so it was worth a shot.
Chicken Noodle Casserole
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons butter
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and chopped fine
1 carrot, peeled and chopped fine
1 onion, chopped fine
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups half-and-half
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, halved lengthwise and trimmed
4 ounces deli American cheese, chopped coarse
4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (1 cup)
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
25 Ritz crackers, crushed coarse
Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil in a Dutch oven. Add the noodles and 1 tablespoon of salt and cook, stirring often, until the noodles are just al dente, about 3 minutes. Drain the noodles and rinse them with cold water until they are cool, about 2 minutes. Drain the noodles again and set them aside.
Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in the now empty pot over medium-high heat. Add the bell pepper, carrot and onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes. Transfer the vegetables to a bowl and set them aside. In the now-empty pot, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Add the flour and cook, whisking constantly, for 1 minute. Slowly whisk in the half-and-half and chicken broth and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the mixture is slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Add the chicken and cook until it is no longer pink, about 8 to 10 minutes.
Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and heat the oven to 425 degrees. Remove the pot from the heat, transfer the chicken to a plate, and shred the chicken into bite-size pieces once it is cool enough to handle. Whisk the American and cheddar cheeses into the sauce until it is smooth. Stir the shredded chicken, noodles, bell pepper mixture, peas, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and 1 1/4 teaspoons of pepper into the cheese sauce.
Transfer the mixture to a 13 by 9-inch baking dish and top with the Ritz crackers. Bake the casserole until it is golden brown and bubbling, about 15 minutes. Let the casserole cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Serve.
It was very simple to make and the whole dish comes together in about 45 minutes. I actually used some leftover chicken that we had on hand and sped the process up even more, just warming it in the sauce for 2 minutes instead of having to cook it all the way through. even though I personally didn’t eat any, I have to admit that it looked pretty good and Michelle and Sean both had seconds so I guess it tasted good too. This recipe makes a lot, with a suggested serving of 8 to 10 people, so if you don’t want a lot of leftovers you can cut it down to half. While they had the casserole, I had a soft shell crab sandwich and slaw, which I will share the recipe for tomorrow.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Leftovers That Don’t Taste Like Leftovers – NYT Cooking.
We all have leftovers from meals that we make and 9 times out of ten you have a hard time figuring out just what to do with them. Sure you can bring them for lunch but to try and turn them into another piece of a meal or main dish for dinner can be tricky. The New York Times Cooking has tried to help out with that with 65 recipes that make use of leftovers for all kinds of occasions and dishes. You can find some new ways to make use of those items you don’t know what to do with with just a bit of this inspiration. Check it out!
I know it seems silly that I have been clamoring for warmer weather for months and now that it is finally here what recipes do I offer up but stew recipes? Well, there are a couple of reasons for the stew recipes. First, I have been so busy with work lately that making a stew gives me a chance to put together a dinner rather easily and have it all in one pot, making things even better for all of us. Second, both of the stews I have made, this one today and the chicken stew yesterday, I kind of spring-like in their ingredients so they fit pretty well into the weather that we have been having lately anyway. lastly, this recipe today came in the last issue of Cook’s Country magazine and I just love to make their recipes, so I couldn’t resist it. This one is for a simple seafood and chorizo stew, making use of shrimp, cod and chorizo so you get the great flavors of the seafood combined with the heat and spiciness of the chorizo.
Seafood and Chorizo Stew
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
6 ounces chorizo sausage, quartered lengthwise and sliced 1/2-inch thick
1 onion, chopped fine
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
2 (14.5-ounce) cans diced tomatoes
1 (8-ounce) bottle clam juice
1 pound extra-large shrimp (21 to 25 per pound), peeled, deveined and tails removed
2 (6-ounce) skinless cod fillets, 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick, cut into 1-inch chunks
Salt and pepper
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan set over medium-high heat until the oil is shimmering. Add the chorizo and the onion and cook until both are lightly browned, about 7 to 9 minutes. Stir in the garlic and 1 teaspoon of the oregano and cook until both are fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the diced tomatoes and their juice and the clam juice, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan and bring the mixture to a simmer. Cook until the mixture is slightly thickened, about 10 minutes.
Pat the shrimp and the cod dry with paper towels and season each with salt and pepper. Gently stir the seafood into the stew and cook until the seafood is opaque and cooked through, about 5 to 6 minutes. Stir in the remaining 2 teaspoons of oregano and season the stew with salt and pepper to taste. Portion the stew into individual bowls and drizzle with a little bit of extra olive oil and serve.
This was a nice thick stew with lots of great flavor to it. love the combination of the shrimp and chorizo and I think if you wanted to leave the cod out altogether and just go with those two this would be a fine dish as well, though the cod adds a nice bit of contrast and some extra meatiness to the dish. I had bought some fresh made chorizo from the butcher and it was perfect, with just the right amount of heat to it. This stew goes great with some nice crusty bread to sop up the juices and I really enjoyed the leftovers for lunch the next day when the stew was even a little bit hotter because the chorizo had really melded into the dish by then. This is another great one pot meal you can have done in under 30 minutes so it is great for any weeknight when you need something easy to put together.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Fun, unusual and forgotten designations on our calendar.
Happily Ever After Lives Here
a little bit naughty a little bit nice
Letting Life Lead
Simple and delicious dinner inspiration
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