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Roasted brussel sprout carbonara

Roasted brussel sprout carbonara

Date: April 2nd, 2013

Recipe: http://www.closetcooking.com/2013/03/roasted-brussels-sprout-carbonara.html

Modifications: None

Time to table: 30 minutes

Servings: 2 adults

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Notes: We had this after the kids went to bed for a stay-at-home date dinner. We’re nothing if not consistent, since the last time we had pasta carbonara was almost exactly a year ago……….for another date night :)

We liked the addition of the brussel sprouts quite a bit, but this recipe was not as saucy as the previous recipe we used. Maybe next April we can combine the best of both worlds and have an awesome carbonara.

Roasted brussel sprout carbonara

Baked Potato Soup

Baked Potato Soup

Date: December 18th, 2012

Recipe: http://ellysaysopa.com/2012/10/15/slowcooker-loaded-potato-soup/

Modifications:  I didn’t peel the potatoes, duh.

Time to table: 30 minutes prep, 4-6 hours in crock pot

Servings: Roughly 6 adults

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: This soup was a great weekday meal if you have a little time in the morning to prep the bacon and onion/flour mixture. The leftovers were better than the initial meal, in my opinion, as it thickened up more in the fridge.

Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce

Pasta with tomato cream sauce

Date: November 20, 2012

Recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/09/pasta-with-tomato-cream-sauce/

Modifications: I sort of halved the recipe because we didn’t need that much (just used half an onion, one can of tomato sauce, etc)

Time to table: 20 minutes

Servings: 2 adults, 1 toddler

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Love

Luke: Loved chewing on some broccoli

Notes: This is a super simple, quick pasta dish – we’ve had it in the past and it’s always a hit. Can’t go wrong with a bunch of cream and cheese!

Luke eating broccoli

Annie eating bread

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Date: October 11, 2012

Recipe: http://www.closetcooking.com/2012/02/roasted-cauliflower-and-aged-white.html

Modifications:  We had some potatoes left over, so I added three potatoes. I think it thickened the soup up a bit more, which we like around here.

Time to table: 50 minutes

Servings: 6 adult servings

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Like

Notes: We are so glad that soup season is upon us! This soup was absolutely delicious, hard to go wrong with all that cheese and cream though. Makes for great leftovers, and we had some New French Bakery bread to go with it, YUM.

Baked ziti

Baked Ziti

Baked Ziti

Date: 2/17/2012

Recipe: http://annies-eats.com/2009/07/02/baked-ziti/

Modifications: None

Time to table: 45 minutes prep, 75 minutes to bake

Servings: 8-10 adults

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Love (the 2nd time with no distractions)

Notes: This dish fills a 13×9 pan completely and makes a massive amount of food.We had our friends over on Friday to eat this and we barely had half of the pan for four adults and two toddlers. We gave them a meals worth of leftovers and we have ourselves a meals worth of leftovers still, very good bang for the buck

I made this the night before and refrigerated it. Even after 75 minutes this still wasn’t hot in the middle, but it was certainly warm enough to eat. We THINK Annie liked this, but she was so wired from having guests over that she barely ate anything.

Baked Ziti

Slow cooker chicken tikka masala

Crockpot Chicken Tikka masala

Date: 11/15/2011

Recipe: http://smells-like-home.com/2011/11/slow-cooker-chicken-tikka-masala/

Time to table: 45 minutes, 6 hours cook time

Modifications: I didn’t use the jalapeno and we used half and half instead of heavy cream.

Servings: 6 adult servings

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: As mentioned earlier, Annie has been a picky eater lately, so her “like” is a relative measure. Erin and I both agreed that while we liked this dish, especially the flavor of the chicken and how tender it got, we probably wouldn’t make it again, just because it wasn’t THAT good. We’ve made chicken tikka masala before and we both liked that version better, though it was much more labor intensive.

If I WAS going to make this again, I would make much less sauce as it seemed almost like an Italian dish with all the red sauce.

Crockpot Chicken Tikka masala

 

White chicken chili

White Chicken Chili

Date: 11/14/2011

Recipe: http://annies-eats.net/2008/09/25/white-bean-chicken-chili/

Time to table: 45 minutes

Modifications: I had some diced up bell pepper in the fridge that we added in with the onions, and and I also added a few cloves of garlic.

Servings: 4 adult meals, 1 toddler

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Like

Notes: We made this for Annie’s 1st birthday party earlier this year and I’m SO glad that Erin reminded me of it, because it’s awesome. I was a little sad that there weren’t more leftovers, Erin and I both took it for lunch the next day and that was the end of it. Annie has not been eating well lately, so while I say “like”, take that with a grain of salt :) It really just means she ate something, as opposed to nothing at all. She had a few good bites and picked out a lot of the chicken and beans.

White Chicken Chili

Annie at dinner
This was probably right before she spilled this all over herself by messing around with the spoon and hitting her milk. Fun!

 

Corn & cheese chowder

Cheesy Corn Chowder
Doesn’t look like much, but it’s fantastic.

Date: 11/7/2011

Recipe: http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/soups/corn-cheese-chowder/?print=1/#sizeFP

Time to table: 1 hour

Modifications: I added a couple stalks of diced celery because we had some for other meals this week.

Servings: 5 adult dinners

Ben: Love

Erin: Like/Love

Annie: Love

Notes: This was an awesome soup that I’ll definitely make again, I can’t wait for the leftovers tomorrow for lunch (We saved the leftovers for dinner tonight). We didn’t use bread bowls, but I can imagine that would be delicious. We had this for leftovers tonight and I made the mistake of crushing up some crackers in Annie’s bowl. She recognized the crackers and proceeded to pick the cracker pieces out and just eat those. Ugh.

Annie chowing on chowder

Cheesy Corn Chowder

Chicken pasta with poblano cream sauce

Pasta with poblano cream sauce and chicken

Date: August 27th, 2011

Recipe: The recipe for the cream sauce came on our CSA newsletter with this week’s box:

2-3 poblano peppers (we had 5 and used them all)
1 Tbsp butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
black pepper to taste
1 cup white wine
1 cup heavy cream
salt to taste

Roast the peppers on your preferred device (grill, stovetop, oven) and let them sweat for 10 minutes after roasting. Remove the skin and seeds, and chop the peppers up, and set aside. Saute the garlic in the butter for a minute. Add black pepper and white wine and bring to a simmer and let it reduce down a bit. Add chopped peppers, heavy cream, and salt and let it simmer for 6-8 until thickened. Serve over pasta.

Modifications:  We also grilled a couple chicken breasts while we were roasting the peppers and put some chicken into our sauce as well to give it a little protein.

Time to table: 40 minutes

Servings: 2 adult dinners, 1 toddler dinner, 1 lunch

Ben: Dislike

Erin: Dislike

Annie: Dislike

Notes: I was disappointed in this recipe. The sauce had decent taste, but it didn’t thicken up at all so it didn’t really stick to the pasta well. I’m going to have it for lunch tomorrow, we’ll see if cooling down thickens the sauce any. Not a bad way to use up five poblano peppers, but I think I would add some thickening agent next time. Annie didn’t seem interested at all in this, but with her you never know if it’s the food or her particular mood that night :)

Pasta with poblano cream sauce and chicken

Pasta bolognese

Pasta bolognese

Date: July 14th, 2011

Recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/spaghetti-bolognese-recipe/index.html

Modifications: I reversed the amounts of meat: 1 lb ground pork and 0.5 lb ground beef, just cause I like pork better. I also threw in some basil that we had and needed to use up. The directions say to simmer for 1.5 hours, but I liked the consistency after 45-50 minutes, so we went with that.

Time to table: 2 hours, over half the time is just simmering.

Servings: Probably had enough for 6 adults

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Love

Notes: This sauce was absolutely delicious. The butter and cream at the end just make it that much richer. At no point in the directions does it say to drain the fat from the bacon, beef, or pork, so this is an extremely savory dish. Annie seemed to like the food very much, but also seemed interested in playing so she didn’t take it down like other dishes she loves. We froze the leftovers because we already have plenty of other leftovers that need to get eaten and I didn’t want this to be wasted.

Pasta bolognese

Annie digging in

Pasta bolognese

Early stages with the bacon (and bacon grease!) and veggies for our base

Pasta bolognese

Finished sauce