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
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!
Father’s Day Recipes to Make For Dad – Bon Appétit.
Father’s Day is just a few days away and coming up with a nice meal to treat Dad on Father’s Day would be a nice way to cap off the day. Whether it is making his favorite dinner, favorite dessert, ideal breakfast or just his favorite beverage you can make something and let him know he’s special to you. Speaking as a dad myself, it makes you feel great when others take the time to show and tell you their appreciation of what you do. Bon Appetit has put together 31 recipes that are perfect for Father’s Day so you can show Dad just how awesome he is. Check them out and have a Happy Father’s Day to all of the dads!
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!
Dishes to Bring to an Outdoor Party.
My apologies for not posting as regularly as I would like lately. Work has gotten the better of me and I just have not had enough free time to get to everything. I am still cooking away and trying new recipes and accumulating them to put on, so I will be back to it when I get the time again. In the meantime, since it is coming up on that outdoor party and barbecue time of year where you may be going to different places, here are 36 recipes from Bon Appetit for great dishes that you can bring to any outdoor party as your contribution. You will find all kinds of great ideas listed here that can make a great addition to any buffet or party. Check it out!
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 am always on the lookout for a good deal when it comes to grocery shopping. If I can get a bargain that we can get a few meals out of that is even better and I am willing to drive a little bit if I have to get there. That is why I buy a lot of my meat and produce from Adam’s Farms, which is a good 20 mile drive for me but well worth it. I had also forgotten that we have a Fresh Market that is about the same distance away from here and I always found good stuff when I would go there when visiting my family in North Carolina so I signed up to get their emails and see what kinds of deals they might have. It turns out on Thursdays they do a store special called the Little Big Deal where you get the ingredients for a dinner to feed a family of f our all for the cost of twenty dollars. The run the special every Thursday and this month’s special was a spaghetti and meatballs dinner, where they included a pound of whole wheat pasta, a pound of lean ground sirloin or ground turkey or a beef-free substitute, a jar of tomato sauce, a bag of salad and a family size fruit tub all for twenty dollars. It seemed like a good deal and I had been playing to make a new spaghetti and meatballs recipe I got from Geoffrey Zakarian so I thought I would adapt these ingredients from Fresh Market into the recipe and see what I came out with.
Geoffrey Zakarian’s Spaghetti and Meatballs
5 tablespoons panko breadcrumbs, finely processed
6 ounces heavy cream (as needed to soak the breadcrumbs)
1 tablespoon vegetable or canola oil
1/2 cup diced onions
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
8 ounces ground pork
8 ounces sweet pork sausage, no casing
8 ounces ground veal
5 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated, plus more for garnish
1/4 cup finely minced fresh parsley, plus more for garnish
1 egg
Kosher salt
Basic Tomato Sauce recipe, to follow
1 pound spaghetti
Freshly cracked black pepper
For the Basic Tomato Sauce:
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 leaves fresh basil
1 clove garlic, chopped
Pinch red pepper flakes
One 32-ounce can San Marzano tomatoes, drained and processed in a food mill or food processor
Soak the breadcrumbs in the heavy cream in a medium bowl. Heat a large saute pan over medium heat and add the oil. Saute the onions and the garlic until the onions are translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the rosemary, remove the pan from the heat and then chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, about 30 minutes.
Combine the breadcrumb mixture, the onion mixture, pork, sausage, veal, Parmesan cheese, parsley and the egg in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer on low-speed, mix until all of the ingredients are well incorporated, about 1 to 2 minutes. Alternatively, mix all the ingredients by hand until everything is well incorporated, then add some salt for seasoning.
Heat a small saute pan to cook a sample of the mixture. Taste the mixture for seasoning and make any necessary adjustments. Form the meatballs into the desired size and shape and place them on a wire rack placed inside a rimmed baking sheet. Chill the meatballs for about 1 hour so they have a chance to set.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Bake the meatballs until they are browned, about 20 to 25 minutes. Bring the Basic Tomato Sauce to a simmer in a large pot or Dutch oven. Transfer the meatballs to the pot with the tomato sauce and allow the mixture to simmer until the meatballs are tender and cooked through, about 30 minutes.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Boil the spaghetti until al dente per the package instructions. transfer the cooked spaghetti to the sauce with the meatballs and toss. Add some black pepper, garnish with Parmesan cheese and parsley and serve.
To make the Basic Tomato Sauce, heat a saucepan over medium heat. Add the olive oil, basil, garlic and the red pepper flakes and cook until the garlic begins to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes, bring the mixture to a simmer and cook for 1 minute. Use the sauce right away or chill the sauce until you are ready to use it.
Okay, I did make a couple of changes to fit some of the ingredients I had from the Fresh Market. First, for the meatballs I used a mix of meatloaf mix and he ground sirloin I had on hand instead of just pork and veal. For the tomato sauce, I did a mix of making the basic sauce and using the jar of sauce I had purchased, which was an organic tomato and basil sauce, so it all worked out very well. I have to say I was a little concerned about the meatballs because I didn’t think they would have much flavor and it looked like a lot of breadcrumbs in the mix that had set with the heavy cream, but I was pleasantly surprised. the meatballs turned out to be very tender and had great flavor to them. Michelle even commented that she thought they were the best meatballs she had ever had, so that was pretty high praise. We even had enough leftover so we will get another meal or some lunches out of it, so that twenty dollars is going to go pretty far. We served the meal with the salad that came with the deal (it was a Caesar salad and quite tasty) and I had made a baguette so it was a nice meal and the fruit was a great way to top it all off. Both the recipe and the deal from Fresh Market are definitely worth checking out.
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
onedadskitchen 